General Gaming Apple issues new rules for App Store that will impact streaming game services from Google and Microsoft

[Brian]

CNBC

 

Quote

One major update on Friday relates to game streaming services. Microsoft and Facebook have publicly said in recent months that Apple’s rules have restricted what their gaming apps can do on iPhones and iPads.
 

Microsoft’s xCloud service isn’t available on iOS, and Facebook’s gaming app lacks games on iPhones. 

Apple now says that game streaming services, such as Google Stadia and Microsoft xCloud, are explicitly permitted. But there are conditions: Games offered in the service need to be downloaded directly from the App Store, not from an all-in-one app. App makers are permitted to release a so-called “catalog app” that links to other games in the service, but each game will need to be an individual app.

 

Apple’s rules mean that if a streaming game service has 100 games, then each of those games will need an individual App Store listing as well as a developer relationship with Apple. The individual games also have to have some basic functionality when they’re downloaded. All the games and the stores need to offer in-app purchase using Apple’s payment processing system, under which Apple usually takes 30% of revenue. 

 

“This remains a bad experience for customers. Gamers want to jump directly into a game from their curated catalog within one app just like they do with movies or songs, and not be forced to download over 100 apps to play individual games from the cloud,” a Microsoft representative said in a statement. A Google representative declined to comment. 

[chakoo]

This is fucking 

 

[HGLatinBoy]

This doesn't make any sense, why the fuck whould i want to download Gears of War 5 on my phone directly from the app store.

[Ghost_MH]

54 minutes ago, HGLatinBoy said:

This doesn't make any sense, why the fuck whould i want to download Gears of War 5 on my phone directly from the app store.

 

It's not meant to be a realistic compromise from Apple. Apple is hoping to get a PR win with folks that only read headlines.

 

Microsoft snubs Apple’s olive branch to cloud gaming: ‘a bad experience for customers’

 

This policy change will easily make this a both sides issue.

[TwinIon]

According to this, not only would Microsoft/Google/etc. need to create an individual app for each game, but they'd have to offer that game for sale individually. Also, all in-app purchases would obviously need to go through Apple's system. All updates to the game (even when they're done entirely server side) would need to be submitted to Apple. I wouldn't be surprised if Apple also wants them to offer the subscription itself as an in-app payment, so they can get their 30% cut of that too.

 

 

I don't think this even qualifies as an Olive Branch. I think it's entirely a legal maneuver. They want to tell the anti-trust court in the EU that they went out of their way to specifically change the rules in order to cater to these cloud streaming games, but Apple didn't want to change the rules in a way that would actually make anyone take them up on their offer. 

 

I still think streaming is the inevitable future of games, and subscriptions are the default business model for them. Still, I don't expect streaming to subsume locally rendered games anytime soon, so I imagine this fight will continue for some time. I think Apple has a lot to lose here, so I don't expect them to back down.

 

[ort]

Yeah, I 100% get why Apple doesn't want something like this on their platform... but they are eventually going to lose this battle. They may as well make concessions early and try to find some sort of compromise before the government gets involved.

[Mr.Vic20]

4 minutes ago, ort said:

Yeah, I 100% get why Apple doesn't want something like this on their platform... but they are eventually going to lose this battle. They may as well make concessions early and try to find some sort of compromise before the government gets involved.

OR, the time is right for:

 

Spoiler

APPLE'S PIPPIN 2: Pippin hot, just for you! 

 

[Keyser_Soze]

In order to stream the games you have to not stream the games. Makes sense!

 

Now could they circumvent this by putting the individual game up on the store but make it free, and one level saying, "Play the rest with Xcloud app"?

[Ghost_MH]

Looks like that'll be a no for bluetooth controllers for any game streaming apps that stream over a web browser. Good for Figure and Amazon that anyway have their own WiFi controllers, but a wired controller like the Razer Kishi might also work.

 

Apple will remove app that made it easy to play Stadia on iOS

WWW.THEVERGE.COM

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Stadium is disappearing from the App Store.

 

Sounds like Apple doesn't like webapps that access the Bluetooth stack, though I guess this might not be an issue if you could just direct users to just manually browse to the site via the URL.