Ghost_MH

I'm talking about other devs that have nothing to do with Epic or even other publishers. There are small devs that self publish games on the Apple and Google Play app stores. Those devs would love to keep more of their own money if there were competition in the financial transaction department. Half of the games on my phone right now are indie games not from any large publisher. That's Epic's claim. https://www.epicgames.com/fortnite/en-US/news/the-fortnite-mega-drop-permanent-discounts-up-to-20-percent They could be lying here, but the console matters have usually cut good deals for other companies in the past on an individual basis. They could be lying here, though, and taking the hit on console v-bucks to stick it to Google and Apple. Epic forced Nintendo to allow them to do voice chat without the phone app on Switch, so they can and have made demands to at least Nintendo that Nintendo hasn't given in to anyone else.

Yes. Yeah. Everyone here knows that. What's the worst case scenario in the case that Epic gets everything they want out of this lawsuit? They can offer a store front on iOS like they do on Android. They can use their own payment provider for in app purchases the way they do on PC, all the consoles, and the non-Google Play version of Fortnite. Every other developer gets those same perks. Yeah, Epic is going into this purely because they want to make more money, but so what? Why did that matter? Why did it even matter that they're an asshole of a company that steals TikTokers dances and make money off of it? None of that stuff is relevant if there is a chance that some good can come to all the smaller mobile devs out there.

If you don't think this is going to come up in the EU's antitrust probe, then I don't know what to say. Before this, it would have been only a single point on a larger presentation. Apple choosing to kill off Epic's support of UE on iOS and macOS is something else. I'm not even thinking about gaming here. I'm thinking about the number of developers using Macs to develop UE games that are now going to lose their support.

Probably, but that doesn't really matter if Apple is just going to prove Epic's point for them.

I'm also sure this move will go over well with the EU's antitrust probe into Apple.

Nah. Even though Epic is doing this for entirely selfish reasons, if they win then everyone other than Apple wins and that's fine by me. Same goes for the Google side of things. Apple Pay and Google Pay should certainly be options on the app side of things, but they shouldn't be the end all. I just don't see why companies like Square or PayPal or even Amazon shouldn't get to offer their services to handle in app payments. Any competition there would be good.

I really don't get why Kasich. If you really wanted a conservative to speak at the DNC you could have just gone with someone from the Lincoln Project.

That's why I said the only way it would happen is if Biden publicly pushed Congress to make those changes. Too bad he won't even have the chance. It's easy to delegate power to the executive since you can blame it for everything while also continuously getting voting in.

And nobody really should unless Congress does something to sharply reign in the power of the executive. Unfortunately, that's never going to happen unless Biden spends first term trying to publicly convince Congress to do just that. Unfortunately, he wouldn't since he'd need that power to undo everything Trump did. Also unfortunate, since he's not going to win.

It's going to be cool when someone at AT&T thinks "Those Disney folks really know how to make money on superheros. Let's work out a licensing deal.".

So much better. He was previously stuck in that first villager house.

They are. This is easily a case where they could offer a game with all the motion controls plus a more standard control scheme for portable play.

It's right there from Facebook's own mouth... Facebook knows where this stuff is and just doesn't care. How do you split the hair between antisemitism and Holocaust denial?

I think it's the abstraction of what they use that data for that makes Facebook less palatable. Google uses your data to deliver more relevant stuff to you; whether that be search results, YouTube videos, or even ads. Google is being creepy here, but it feels less creepy because it feels like a service to you. Amazon uses it's data on you to recommend things to you that you would more likely buy. Again, it feels like a service to you. Facebook, in theory, isn't doing anything different, but since the product they're offering is content shared by friends and family, it feels more sinister. The question raised there is "Why do I need an algorithm to show me what my friends and family are trying to share?". Follow that up with Facebook having with a history of being reckless with your personal data in the pursuit of profit. That be whether we're talking about their once ubiquitous trackers, Cambridge Analytica, the way they can change privacy settings on people, or even just the ad terms they offer advertisers. Yeah, Google has the larger ad network, but they also don't offer demographics like racists as a target audience.

This much is obvious. There's some stuff that can only be accomplished by gigantic multinationals. YouTube isn't doable unless you've got a lot of money backing you. I think Facebook's bigger issue is that they're easily the most evil of all these companies and the least willing to care about what happens to your personal info. It's best to always assume any government can get any data it wants from you, so there's no point in worrying about that piece.

Facebook goes when people move elsewhere. The issue there is that Facebook is far more ubiquitous than like MySpace was. They also bought up their primary competition twice now, so there's that too.

I deleted my account back in January. That doesn't mean I'm away from that hell of a company since I still have an Instagram and quite heavily use WhatsApp to stay in touch with family and friends.

I really enjoyed Korra. I even would have liked an additional season or two.

This thing is pretty damn thin, but it's so wide, even when folded. I don't know why they made it so wide. I might get one to play around with. It looks like it could, in theory, be a pretty good pocketable tablet for work.

Ha. Maybe this time he'll have a nice house. He was one of my original campers.

Yeah, that was my reaction as well. It just clicked in a way that made the most sense since most and keyboard for a FPS. Gyro controls aren't as quick and fluid as the Wii Pointer method. I was very disappointed when I learned that the Switch's IR camera was going to be pointing in the wrong direction.

They aren't, but who else beside another asshole of a company with tons of cash on hand could hold Apple's and Google's feet to the fire here?

I'm all for Apple and Google charging folks for using their payment methods. I'm completely against Apple and Google forcing companies to use their payment methods. There is no reason they couldn't allow so creators to go through other companies like Square, PayPal, Amazon, or whatever other major payment processors for in a purchases. Also, it looks like Epic is claiming Google forced LG and OnePlus from installing the EGS on their phones alongside the Google Play Store. https://www.theverge.com/2020/8/13/21368395/fortnite-epic-games-oneplus-deal-google-play-store-lawsuit-lg

He threatened to sue his old schools if they released his grades. There's no way there's anything good in there.

Nope. I tried a couple of times to put together some sort of IGN get together on the Anime Boards at Anime Boston, but it never went anywhere.