In the Epic vs Apple lawsuit, some interesting documents are expected to appear. The first one covers the first 9 months of Epic's free games, how much each game did cost them, how many users it acquired etc.

Source

Sadly there isn't a better image available yet.

Edit 1:
Documents from Epic's and Apple's openings are online as PDFs. They seem to be up and down frequently. And incomplete?
Link

Edit 2:
There are also more details available for the deal between Epic and 2k.

Edit 3:
There is new information about the EGS, covering sales in 2019 and 2020. Source

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2 years ago*

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With which party do you side?

View Results
Epic - 100%!
Epic - somewhat
Apple - somewhat
Apple - 100%
Neither, both are devils!
Neither, both are saints!
I only side with potatoes.

One more interesting thing from these files is that Sony demands publishers to pay them for the crossplay if their revenue drops.

https://www.theverge.com/2021/5/3/22417560/sony-ps4-cross-play-confidential-documents-epic-games-agreements

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2 years ago
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Ah, also, for those who still think Epic actually care about industry and not their own money:

“If Apple told you the deal would only be with you and no other developers,” referencing a carve-out for lower App Store commission, “would you have accepted that deal?”

"Yes I would have,” Sweeney says.

2 years ago
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Where did you get this from?

2 years ago
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Not saying it is taken out of context just because it's from an Apple related news site, but hoped for a more complete text of the hearing.

2 years ago
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Not sure there is one available for us mere peasants (although there was one public case but obviously they won't be making all the info public). But here's a cnet article just in case:
https://www.cnet.com/news/fortnite-battles-apple-epic-says-its-fighting-for-all-developers-but-admits-it-wanted-a-special-deal/

2 years ago
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In a world that cares about customers all those publishers with crossplay games would pull all their games from Sony after this. I gues that after the first massive backlash from gamers that want to play games from those developers/publishers on Sony consoles result would be that Sony is paying them to put crossplay in everything just so they can have their customers back

2 years ago
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Well, if only most of the Sony customers would care about what's going on behind the scenes. The same goes for Apple, go tell those people camping for days at the Apple stores for the new iProduct, what are Apple's policies concerning developers..So you're right, in a world...

2 years ago
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There is new information about the EGS, covering sales in 2019 and 2020. Source

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2 years ago
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If nothing else, the fact that someone is finally peeling away the skin and exposing these numbers is a good thing. Transparency helps everyone in the industry.

2 years ago
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Another interesting thing is EGS offered Sony $200m for '4-6 games':
https://www.gamesradar.com/epic-games-reportedly-offered-sony-dollar200m-for-its-first-party-exclusives/

2 years ago
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Interesting that Microsoft opposed Epic's plans but meanwhile also uses the 88/12 split, at least for their PC store.

2 years ago
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If this is referring to EGS exclusivity (at least I don't see anything about this particular case tied to split), there is nothing surprising about it actually.
With their current strategy, Microsoft simply isn't interested in locking their games behind one launcher.

2 years ago
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Microsoft ain't what they used to be, but they ain't dumb.
There's no advantage to Microsoft for EGS to grow large, but that doesn't mean they can't get some good publicity (and possibly market share) for their own store by changing their fee structure

2 years ago
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for me, the Borderlands 3 data is the most interesting.

Minimum Guarantee: $80 Million
Actual Sales: $77 Million
Looks like 2K knows what it's doing

Marketing Commitment and Fees $35 million
EGS Commission: $9.2 Million
They spent 4x their profit margin on marketing... that can't bode well

Fully Loaded Borderlands Deal $146 Million
Recoupable Revenue: $100 Million
Total loss: $46 million (31%).

Must be good to be able to afford losing that kind of money.

2 years ago
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Epic is playing a long game. They know that sooner or later the Fortnite billions will dry up and when that happens, the only chance they have is if they converted that money into ongoing users. I kind of wish I knew what the estimated lifetime value of a Steam user was fifteen years ago when Valve was trying to develop their customer base. I imagine that number has grown massively since then.

2 years ago
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oh, I understand the business perspective.
They're skirting very close to anti-dumping laws

2 years ago
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Thanks for info

2 years ago
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Update: https://www.theverge.com/2021/9/10/22662320/epic-apple-ruling-injunction-judge-court-app-store
The good: Developers can now use non-apple payment systems.
The bad: Apple is allowed to permanently kick Epic off the App store (which may be a problem for app developers using unreal engine)

2 years ago
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apple...the Disney of phone company's

2 years ago
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Sounds like the status quo - you can use a different payment system but apple can kick you off, which means they can make it so you effectively can't.

le epic troll face

2 years ago
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From what I see, there were two problems with Apple according to the lawsuit

A) They are charging 30% which is too much because Apple users don't have any choice but their app store

B) Even in the app store, you can't use any other payment systems

The court has decided B is illegal, but they haven't said anything about A.

So, I count this as a loss for epic (and as much as I dislike epic, it's a loss for consumers too) . Epic wanted to bypass completely their app store. They failed.

2 years ago
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