Apple vs Epic Special: 27% fee, new guidelines & creative solutions with workarounds

there's this kind of a yeah a scare screen basically which which scare screen no it's kind of like throwing a barricade into a user funnel literally show me show me uh so ma is probably showing it currently and literally reads that you're about to go to an external website apple is not responsible for the privacy or security of purchases made on the web so all the taks and this is no gaming podcast 2 and a half gamer sharing actionable insights dropping Knowledge from our day-to-day user acquisition game design and AD monetization jobs we are definitely not discussing the latest industry news but having so much fun let's not forget this is a 400 a.m. conference discussion Vibe so let's not take it too seriously hello hello hello hello everybody um we have a special emergency episode today my name is Mel anarich I'm

Felix Brer and I'm yier and we are your hosts and we also work as consultants on the UA ad monetization and game design side so emergency it is because uh couple of days ago Apple versus epic uh well well the news kind of appear everywhere basically so and I also got an email from from Apple uh about the outside of App Store p so we can just dive into it and see what happens because it's an absolute sh already so okay so I got this email uh saying hey you know um we' like to update you on the guidelines because from now on WE allow apps to offer in a purchases to include an link to the developers website that informs users of other ways of purchase digital Goods or digital

goods or services there's like a few requirements everything that was added which is uh you know now you're allowed to actually include buttons external links or other calls to action the direct customers to purchasing mechanism other than inaf purchases so this is first thing and then we have uh some store kits external purchase link entitlement but then this is absolutely interesting you know we believe Apple's in a purchase system is the most convenient safe and secure way for users to purchase digital goods and services if you are considering using this indictment along with in a purchase which continues to be required of purchase of digital goods and services with your app it's important to understand the some of features blah blah blah T allowed uh TDR the history history a

little bit so epic is still in fight with apple and the Supreme Court rejected yeah it's never ending and Supreme Court just rejected uh the appeal of Apple so they are now forced appeal of Epic as well so it's both appeals both both both BTE so but but tldr you are now able to do links to your web stores in the apps which was just what mate R red yes but there's there's a Twist but there's more and we are going to talk about the more part now yeah yes there the more part is that Apple will charge you a 27% commission to allow you to do so so nothing has changed amazing deal amazing deal thank you very much uh perfect so we got like few articles running around the internet there's the one from Verge which is not very detailed in for for us basically just talks and kind of generic but our friend Neil uh from mobile Gam Bast had

already two articles about this issue ah so many things man it's it's amazing and then we also kind of digging a little bit deeper into redit what can we do rumor of the streets and Blum on the streets yeah all these the rumor I heard on the street before this decision came through was that you know developers a lot of bigname developers that we know uh that we might have talked about on the Pod before they were doing this essentially they were linking to their web store and then they were not getting charged they could still got charged from whoever they built a web store with but that's like you know maybe somewhere between two to 6% and they were doing so happly and Apple and Google were turning a blind eye because essentially they didn't want to kick up a fuss right but now with a new commission that they've actually made it worse right yeah because if Apple are getting are charging 27%

that's without the fee that you're getting charged with any like external web shops like exola they probably charge anywhere like between 3 to 6% right so it's coming in more than actually using the 30% actually set up in Apple's web store or App Store uh which is insane that basically the system is so weird that they have to allow third party payments but then they put a commission so it just feels to me that you know they have more Firepower to spend on lawyers so they're just dragging it out I read somewhere that they like were trying to get epic to pay $71 million for their legal fees yes and if you think about that in legal fees like what's that like ours like gez that's a lot of money like and I me personally I'm just taking a big sigh because can we like guys like we need to win if you take away the idfa like come on give something back I know it's about money and I know it's your epic like perfect purpose in life to earn more money for your like

shareholders but come on like so are Apple was forced to do something but it pretty much throw another wrench into the process and just delaying and stalling because what what going to happen epig or whoever going to appeal on this 27% commission fee and the process continues and more lawyers get rich that's uh one way to do it the next you should have gone into like legal work perfect definitely uh the other interesting Milestone to look for is the effective date of dma the European kind of Marketing Act regulation that's going to be in March 7th March 7th which is going to cover this thing if I understand correctly and it could also kind of at least that's what team spy said that like we kind of he said like we can a lost in the US let's look for Europe what it does there so that's that's another possibility and then there's uh these kind of you know

creative ways how to tackle this problem yes because uh effectively what uh what Apple said look so you you you have a link you have a button in in your in your app which is trackable obviously with whatever token it doesn't matter but in theory you know if you only say well you know you can go to our website and just I don't know get a discount for for Bros yeah yeah just so you know PL yeah just you know just by the way yeah by the way you know just visit our website uh whatever and then you can get 30% discount so you know there's no link no clickable link so plenty of people would most likely to visit the website of on their own you know and just get the discount sharing uh some of the savings with the developers right so you know there is I think an option without the the 27% cut in theory so you know

maybe let's maybe in detail like how the process is like this kind of Empire Strikes Back action in in in detail so there's this kind of a yeah a scare screen basically which which gu scare screen no it's kind of like throwing a barricade into a user funnel literally show me show me uh so m is probably showing it currently and literally reads that you're about to go to an external website apple is not responsible for the privacy or security of purchases made on the web so all the tis and checks for all the words that you definitely don't want to use if somebody is going to buy something if is just like I know that's exactly why I'm here honestly like yeah but the thing is if uh if you thought that the idfa screen was just uh you know scary and then terrible like this is like 5x or 10x worse yeah and then then on top of it uh there's other

things in this process that you need to adhere to that team SNY has a nice summary on his uh one exposed where um you pretty much are required to open a generic web browser session forcing the user to login into developers website again to make a purchase and because of uh number two which like apple dictates all aspects of the links and doesn't allow them in the app's ordinary payment flow users will have to search all over again for digal item they wanted to buy so again more barricades in the user whatever payment funnel uh and then um Apple will um probably require for you to give them pretty much their trans your transaction history so they can take their 27% yeah basically backtracking what you are talking about with the Google uh policy changes as well the time and the refreshes again like all the it's like come on yeah so looking through the

internet uh as as mentioned there are people that are saying that you could effectively do this in a way that you don't induce the payment through the link in the app but you just kind of move the user somehow to the web store doesn't need to be directly or somehow and then it means that or or would that mean that you then are not forced to go into the 27% fee then I think like can't yeah you can't think about it even if if you are able to like move your paying player base onto the web store and like okay let's let's let's Okay like we'll just go with this like one payment and we pay the 27% but what about all the other payments but you need to yeah come on none of them could then should go through 20 sample because they're already there so we don't need to put them links in there and like you know we can say it on the store like please don't click on any links on the app just remain on the web store and you can buy that with this giant discount and we can

do that yeah but thing is like you have the you are doing this web stor so you can actually earn more money and if you put discounts on your web store and you and people or players are going to click on the link then you are paying 27% Commission of and then 3 to six% on like the payment imagine that it's just like the trans let's call it the transfer payment you do some kind of a like very small whatever you just sacrifice one payment that will be with this kind of 27% but then the users remain there you don't need to link them all the time okay got it yeah okay so all the other LTV can be done yours you know I know what you mean okay so yeah okay so you okay so yeah okay okay that's a creative way of is this really what we're going to spend our time and effort to think about and focusing on because it's just like yeah that's what we definitely need to do like creative ways how to save money it's just such a way like it's just so frustrating like there's an actor who doesn't want to let go of the 30% 30% is way too much if

they moved it down to 10 we probably wouldn't have this discussion as fiercely and then yeah it's just this is really what we should spend our time like focusing our efforts on on like escaping Apple's new commission it's just that's my guess that it's going to happen because everybody's going to dispute this and my guess is that if it's kind of you know I already found two creative ways how to you know go around this so my guess is the policy will be updated next month prob yeah yeah 100% I mean look so Liv living document but like uh I think like what Paulo mentioned uh in our slack which comes down to like the credit card payment fees which is I mean it started like 10 20 years ago and apple just scaled this effectively to like all the all their inup purchas making billions basically yeah billions to keep in mind I just looked it up before the podcast so in 22 was the full year right for

Apple it was 12% of Apple's revenues came from the app store right so that's massive like that's a big chunk of change yeah of course you don't want to lose that money right so you know you have so many lawyers to think and you know they're fin Financial Engineers it's like on the table so why don't you throw every single lawyer on the planet that you can to to stop this you know like seems seems kind of obvious to me from side yeah like if if they change this 30% to anything less than 27 it's just they will lose billions On The Wall Street yeah and of course like you know there's Army of people and companies doing all they can to keep this number the same as it was for a long time it's just ah man uh well what do you guys what do you guys personally think of this like what do you guys think so if I'm like whatever the monetization manager that's like in charge of this

like now we can web like link web links the like what what you going to do so I'm going to like you know try these scenarios and go one by one and try to optimize them of which ones going to produce the biggest kind of yeah oh movement of payers from the app to the store and now I'm just thinking about what you said about this like one purchase only and then you can you can do whatever else well that's not how it works man so uh it's you have the link which has parameters obviously and cookies and all of the fun stuff so if you have this parameter and this also like how the multi website conversion and linking kind of works you have this token which is going with you all the time even if you clink uh click on on one create one ad on let's say Google search on web and then you you browse through e-commerce whatever else and then you come back then it tracks you back to to the page basically assuming that you in the same

browser session yes so you reset the browser session yes but how many players will do that honestly payers if they get discounts they will do it well payers yes but you said but you're talking only about payers sure but you said like uh well you need to guide them like how to do things so you earn more money so you can get they can get discount so it's not that easy you know because well it's going to be more more you know complex uh solution than that don't get me wrong it's not going to be easy but what I'm saying there's a way and there's a way there's always try to use it there's always a waste of energy I think it's just like I mean just think about it like for instance I don't know supercell supercell already had this kind of supercell ID throughout all of their games and once they have it like you know you're for instance I'm crosslinking my super games on on emulators and stuff through that ID not through Google account or whatever it works great so imagine everybody kind of starts from here and then like suddenly

Apple kind of loses this tracking of the user that goes to the stores yeah but don't don't you remember we did it in pixel Federation as well we had our own web portal where we kind of tried to push a lot of people from Facebook canvas and also from mobile and like yeah it works like and it still works yeah people are already like doing it for years it's just not like nothing new it's just yeah like not an industry wild scale that's the difference yes which could be the case here no yeah now it well it should be like you know pla has this like plarium as well like all these like website imagine that you know let's say games these days aren't really like just run in your mobile they have their own communities discords reddits whatever and imagine that like the official Community messaging of every single kind of a company that tries to do this goes like into overdrive on all these platforms true which probably already is there is there because already is there propably because they can do it but now

they can officially link it through the mobile users yes they can officially link it yeah they can official link it and then put like a lot more I mean this kind of removes like maybe one obstacle but where do we where do we think this is going to end up and like cuz obviously commission this is ridiculous like when or where like where do you think this is going to go because this is like a bit ridiculous they got rid of the 30% pretty much by going out and then commission appeared and I guess maybe two or three three more years legal battles commission will decrease like that it won't it won't like they you know they want to keep the enough purchases in the store so they earn 30% you see this and this is exactly what they've done so they they yeah they said oh well yeah of course we remove it there 27% there you go because it still makes sense mathematically for them to even if they still like 27% on they will make money on the bigger Ina purchases or whatever so it's I don't think it's going to go

away the question is if there would be like a new store created at some point well it's yes apparently there might be something already in in the works from like M Microsoft but it's like how it was already here like did nothing so we'll see yeah we'll see but like you have this like South Korea 27% Google play out it's the same thing it's exactly the same thing it was here for a long time but I think it also kind of needs to move a little bit culturally because imagine let's say for instance in China where you have like hundreds of these stores people are kind of used to it here they're just not used to it so once they get used to it then it's kind of probably the push kind of comes organically but until we have the Alternatives we can really do that so I don't know sounds like a chicken and egg problem to me for now yeah of course and like these like all the comments like 27% Apple has turned evil kind wait for alternative app stores and side load is

doing exactly what it should which is exact sholders are okay yeah yeah yeah of course I love that it's just like guys and then when we open up for third party apps I'll add a commission it's just yeah well done apple is exactly what you should do yeah genius Financial engineering or like whatever else as well like this yeah yeah Kudos but yeah in terms of like of the barricade anyway exactly we are not sh shareholders so like well it sucks for us honestly but yeah so so what next uh we have Team Sweeney fighting the battle I guess next kind of outcome will be March 7th we should do another po then see what happens no yeah of course uh then then we are good to well I mean it's at least there's this um positive uh way

that you can actually link out you can start being creative now that's the message I would like end this with like you can start being creative is legal there's still 27% fee whatever things there in the process but you know it's based on your kind of hacks and tricks that you can exactly it down so feel free to join our slack and share your knowledge without and we can talk about that in we can talk about different no because like this is what's going to happen like developers are going to well they always talking to each other right so there's if if one company finds Lo hole Yeah figures it out like hey there you go like we figure it out as well so Yep this is gonna this definitely gonna happen because imagine if you just figure out the loophole just to move the traffic you cannot then stop it because it's already there you move your paying user base to VB it's there and what can apple do nothing no nothing yeah of course nothing so well in theory nothing this is all Theory so like I mean yeah also the same thing with like just mentioning the the discount in in in the

app or game and not linking it outside of the of the game and app and so like in theory yes I mean could could work because they can't track you back yeah no clickable link for high LTV games this is something must try they already doing it for highl all midore games have like web client or PC client already yeah but but now they have the you know the the change to like the keys to door now like I look there bigger segment there yeah yeah okay I guess that's uh that's it be creative thank you very much and uh see you next time see you around guys [Music] [Music] [Applause] byebye

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