Epic and Google called an end to hostilities last week by agreeing on some changes that offer developers a better deal on the Play Store – but not by much.
Yes, there’s a program developers can join to eke out another 5% for new installs, but in real terms, for most developers currently using Google’s default billings and store set-up, nearly six years of legal bluster amounts to a 5% cut. And that still seems pretty stingy to me.
The big changes promoted by Google and Epic last week were that flat surface rate cut of 30% to 20%, plus the uncoupling of Google’s billings system from the Play Store. It’ll also be a little easier to install other app stores through the Play Store, but already it seems players have told the market that really, they can’t be bothered to.
Even Epic, with Fortnite in its corner, has failed to get much traction with its Game Store to date, and it’s hard to see that changing anytime soon.
Let’s walk through it all in plain English. For existing games, as well as its flat 20% cut, Google will still take another 5% of IAPs for the use of its native billing system, which most developers already use. And even that 5% billing fee comes with another asterisk: it is only for the US, EU, Australia and the UK right now, and Google has not – as far as we’re aware – revealed its rate for using its payments systems everywhere else (which you might reasonably assume just means it’ll just be higher – why not just apply the same fee worldwide?)
Similarly, decoupling Google Play billing from the Play Store allows all developers to choose whatever billing partner they please; definitely a good thing in principle, of course, but most alternative billing firms take 5% anyway, just like Google plans to.
So again, the real terms cut for those who do nothing at this point is 5%, and it’s the same for those using other payment providers – though they may benefit long-term by seeing greater competition in the billings space, and therefore lower rates (and perhaps more personalised, dynamic storefronts, meaning more revenue).
And yes, there are new developer programs that can reduce fees a little further. Signing up to a new ‘Games level up’ initiative means Google will take 15% of IAPs from ‘new installs’ – that is, any games downloaded after these new terms take effect. And it all sounds quite painful to manage, because your game has to meet a load of new criteria set out by Google (the details are in section 10 of this court document).
This is another good thing in principle which may help make releasing new games on Android a little less daunting.
But there’s always a ‘but’. If this program amounts to a load of busywork and time-consuming box-ticking, then developers will need to think long and hard about if it’s actually worth jumping through a brand new set of hoops to claim back that extra 5%.
And really, this is not about new launches at all. Epic, Google and the rest of the mobile games business know that the real money is in the existing long-term money-spinners anyway. This lower new game IAP cut and Level Up program appears to be the cleanest way Google could make changes that look great on the surface, but may not really dent its store income that badly due to the complexities of entering (and staying in) the program.
Ultimately, developers just want to distribute and run their games as simply and easily as they can. Both tech giants know, deep down, that the more complicated and annoying they make this stuff, the less likely it is that anyone will bother to do it. Apple knows this very well, in fact, as we’ve seen before.
For Epic, after years of court battles and spicy Tim Sweeney remarks, this amounts to a partial surrender, really. If you’re a giant like Epic Games and you have already set up your own, bespoke payments infrastructure, Google’s real terms cut for Fortnite IAPs does indeed drop from 30 to 20 per cent.
But is that really enough? Is an effective ten per cent fee cut for Epic and a 5-10% drop for everyone else really what Sweeney has been fighting for all this time? Epic would have surely made much more money by just keeping their games on both app stores for the last six years instead.
And a subtle wrinkle in this settlement suggests that actually, Tim Sweeney isn’t really happy with all this anyway. Sections 22 and 26 of the court document state that Epic must cease to advocate for further changes to the Google Play ecosystem and is not allowed to publicly disparage Google over this deal. The very fact that this was included in the settlement in the first place does rather suggest that there’s lingering discontent here that Sweeney would quite like to post about – but Google don’t want him to.
And so we come to a situation in which Epic’s court battles have undoubtedly been a great thing for opening up the mobile games market, but they also don’t really seem destined to take as much money back from Apple and Google and put it in the pockets of game-makers as we all wanted.
The changes to the mobile ecosystem so far have undoubtedly made the market more open. But the onus is always on developers to do the work; to fill in more forms, join more vague programs and seek out more vendors to claw back that hard-earned cash from platform holders that, frankly, continue to offer relatively little value in exchange for their fees.
Both tech giants love to talk about ‘solving hard problems’ in flashy keynotes but rarely actually solve them. And both app stores are still a mess, app review is still a pain, the right people to talk to at both companies are slippery and near-impossible to contact.
There have been many changes on the app stores in recent years thanks to Epic. But one thing has remained constant: the mobile games Apple and Google make billions from every year continue to succeed in spite of these uncaring platform holders, not because of them.
