It seems the end of the saga has come with the battle between Apple, Google, and Epic Games following the changes made to the popular game Fortnite which would see the developers bypass in-app purchases and offer a direct payment method instead. With court ordered changes to see more competitive marketplaces with the reduction of the 30% tariff assigned to in-app purchases, what does this mean for future and existing developers, and will this lead to more competition between third-party app options in the future too?

(Image from howtogeek.com)

 

One suggestion has been that apps which may not have been as widely represented before will start to emerge – this may cover some of the faster growing options like online casinos with these being a choice for many online players, the large tax for the in-app payments has likely been part of the reason why many hadn’t made the change beforehand but the adjustment does make this a possibility – particularly given the different app marketplaces don’t currently place any restrictions on these operators as there are a few who have launched dedicated apps in the past and have managed to find great success by doing so too.

Some of the argument that had come through had been to the anti-competitive nature of these marketplaces too, this had been less effective for Android devices however as whilst Google do prefer apps present on the Play Store, there are also plenty of third party marketplaces that function well enough and that are in regular use too – this change may just promote some of these other third party services and have users seek out these alternative options in the future as they become more public and as developers look to launch games on these in future if they’re more favourable for rates and releases.

The biggest impact may come to developers – the tariff being so high would often lead to in-app purchases being perhaps a bit more expensive than they needed to be, and artificially driving the price up in order to compensate from the initial loss, but it may be a bit optimistic to suggest that the change would help b ring prices down as it is instead more likely that the additional revenue will simply stay with the developers with the changes in place – but there may be some who pass that saving on to the players and will benefit from more favourable in-app pricing.

This certainly won’t be the last of changes to come to app marketplaces as further changes have already been hinted at but does provide a unique opportunity for developers to benefit from what has already been adjusted.