Apple blocks Steam's plan to extend its video games to iPhones
23 replies, posted
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-apple-steam/apple-blocks-steams-plan-to-extend-its-video-games-to-iphones-idUSKCN1IQ09D
Apple Inc (AAPL.O) has blocked the plans of the biggest distributor of PC-based video games to extend its reach into iPhones, according to the game distributor, a sign that Apple is serious about protecting its ability to take a cut of digital purchases made inside games on its mobile devices.
“The team here spent many hours on this project and the approval process, so we’re clearly disappointed,” Valve spokesman Doug Lombardi said in a statement to Reuters. “But we hope Apple will reconsider in the future.”
This is from a week ago but i searched and checked several pages back and didn't find a thread on this, sorry if it's late. Sounds like they disabled purchasing in the ios version of the app to meet guidelines but that wasnt good enough. I think apple's issue is that games on steam which you'd be using in home streaming for also have their own stores, and apple wants money for literally everything related to whats on their store even if you're just streaming it from a PC.
So Apple wants to keep their monopoly like always. Isn't this something like that Internet Explorer/Browser option for Windows?
Considering the amount of unregulated garbage on Steam I can think of a few valid reasons for this.
there's no garbage that steam has that the app store doesn't have tbh
Fair enough in that case. I don't really know much about the app store but I was presuming it has SOME quality control.
SteamPlay for Android please
You have to get your app accepted by Apple before it can go up for sale IIRC, but unless its straight up pornography (and even then) it won't get denied. They pretty much only deny things that threaten to take away a single penny from their ability to take a huge cut from app sales.
Unfortunate, but I also can't blame them. Having access to desktop games on mobile would prevent me from ever buying another shitty mobile game.
I got an app denied because of a typo in a submenu of a submenu
It would be a weird ecosystem where Steam would be curating a list of things that had been curated by Apple. I understand Valve wanting some of that sweet mobile market money but I also understand the reasoning of Apple not allowing it
There are a few decent ones.
Phone stores also list # purchased, if the app you're installing has like 100 downloads you know it's probably crap or a clone.
Not very surprising tbh
I'm surprised this is legal. I can imagine the amount of lawsuits that would occor if windows promptly said 'we don't want steam on any of our PCs, you'll have to root it / w/e to install it.
It's their own distribution platform running on their software running on their hardware.
They can put whatever restrictions on their own distribution platform they want to.
Reminder that there are already remote desktop apps on the App Store that can potentially allow you to play PC games on your phone, and also purchase games through the Remote Desktop.
Not quite. Remember all the anti-trust and legal mess Microsoft got themselves into about website browsers?
This situation is literally completely different.
Well, yes. It's even worse than the Microsoft example.
With Microsoft you were at least given the ability to download and install your own browser if you wanted to, here Apple control the only store you can use, so if they don't want to allow a competitor on then they can effectively bar them entirely from the platform.
All phones should allow third party application installs to prevent shit like this.
I think all phones do allow third party applications, to certain degrees of "allow".
As far as I know, it is possible to get non-store applications onto your iPhone, just requiring some more knowledge and tinkering - and a developer who's willing to most likely lose all store privileges by going behind Apple's back.
Yeah, but its not actually a provided function on the phone or OS. So it isn't allowed. You can simply break things enough to get around that.
They tend to be cheaper or free on the app store whereas they're sold for 5 to 10 bucks a pop on Steam.