Let me fix this.
There was a full range of views. Some considered the 30% cut to be good at the time, some didn't consider it much at all, some considered it to be a criminal abuse of market power. I remember commenting myself that microsoft would be crucified for attempting to tax everyone who wanted to write software for windows 30% of revenue. I don't recall anyone suggesting that was a controversial comment.
Microsoft did worse, they did charge more than 30% to everyone that published software for the xbox.
People with skin in the game, game publishers, game developers, mobile app developers for nokia, blackberry, samsung, motorola, etc, considered Apple taking "only" 30% to be an excellent deal at the time. It was so good in fact, almost all other store splits collapsed shortly thereafter to the same 30% to compete with Apple.
Others complained, sure. I too complain Ferrari charges way too much for customizing the color of the thread of the interior lining on their cars, I don't know why they don't seem bothered.
There were a range of valid opinions held by intelligent people who had "skin in the game" seems to me to be an utterly uncontroversial statement. Your unsupported list is also only one segment of one particular kind of stakeholder in that market. I think this has probably now gone past being useful to anyone if you agree I wish you the best. Otherwise enjoy the last word...
The fact is that 30% was far less than the carriers and Qualcomm were taking with their stores.
-the mobile carriers cut - up to 70 percent
-the publishers cut (depending on whether you used them). up to 70 percent (carrier fees included).
-some publishers requiring apps to be code signed like Java Verified (a cost that could go up to 50 thousand dollars PER J2ME/JAVA ME app) or Symbian Signed or BREW.
It was a horrific time to build mobile apps.
I am still not defending the 30 percent cut. Just that the cost was seen as trivial then (also the miniscule 99 yearly membership fee that included code signing - Blackberry started at 2500 USD a year).
A simple solution to all this mess is to have rules allowing us to download apps (at our own risk) from outside the app store like you can on Android.
Today, I'm sure you could still publish independently of Steam... but you'd be at a disadvantage.
Microsoft used to charge ridiculous fees for things as simple as submitting a patch for an XBox 360 game.
>Double Fine's Tim Schaefer pegged the cost of submitting an Xbox 360 patch at $40,000 in an interview with Hookshot Inc. earlier this year.
"We already owe Microsoft a LOT of money for the privilege of being on their platform," he said. "People often mistakenly believe that we got paid by Microsoft for being exclusive to their platform. Nothing could be further from the truth. WE pay THEM."
https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2012/07/microsoft-comes-under...
People who think a 30% fee is outsized tend to have no idea whatsoever what the costs were previous to that.
Other examples include checking all the text meets the platforms spec. It's says "DualShock Controller" not "Joypad". It's always Press ○╳□△ and in the correct color for that button, and responds to the region/system setting. For example that X = select in USA, and ○ = select in Japan
The point being that the game console owners don't just trust that your patch didn't break the rules of their technical requirements checklist. Someone actually has to check and it's not a small amount of work. Maybe $40k is too much but $0 is arguably too little
AFAIK, Apple and Google don't do this much. Certainly not to the same extent as Sony/Nintendo/XBox
How can that possibly cost $40,000 except through an extreme abuse of monopoly power?
A simple 30% cut with no other price gouging additional fees was a huge improvement over the status quo.
That article has a developer literally saying that in the end, their percentage of the profit on the XBox 360 was a negative number.
For instance, Verizon was sued for disabling the ability of phones on their network to transfer photos using Bluetooth, because they wanted to charge you money for a simple file transfer.
https://www.eweek.com/mobile/verizon-wireless-users-sue-over...
And yes, they connect to a wireless carrier's network. But I can also connect my laptop to a wireless carrier's network by buying a USB dongle and a SIM card. I'm certainly not expecting anyone to pay 30% of their revenue to sell me an app on my laptop.
Also consider the iPod Touch. It is much closer to being a PDA than a phone, despite the fact that it's essentially an iPhone without a cellular modem.
There are probably a few developers who’d love to pay just 40k to Apple.
Given that review costs are fixed, what is the cost of distribution?
Note the developer saying that with all the additional costs, they ended up in the hole instead of making a profit.
Microsoft has to handle patch distribution, patching itself, tech support for patching, complaints and rollbacks and so on for many years after release -- remember, they still provide patches for Xbox 360 games sold in 2005!
If something breaks then I expect the total costs for all that could easily exceed $40k for very popular titles. Just imagine how many installs of FIFA '06 - '19 (the versions available for Xbox 360) there is! This is obviously not the case with an indie platformer purchased by a few thousand players, though, so for smaller businesses $40k would hurt badly, while it's probably a very good bargain for EA and the likes.
Considering the recent backlash regarding Cyberpunk 2077 on Xbox One/PS4 (not to mention Mass Effect: Andromeda a few years ago), I'd say rigorous testing is warranted. I doubt CP2077 would even have been released for those platforms if they had been properly tested in the first place (not that it would have been an option to not release the game -- It's been pre-orderable for over a year, and the Xbox live store was full of ads for it for many months before the release).
The same logic applies to patches -- if a patch were to actually break a game then it needs to be handled and that isn't necessarily cheap.
They were, Sony and Microsoft just believed CDPR when they lied about fixing it before release [1]
[1] https://screenrant.com/cyberpunk-2077-developer-cdpr-admits-...
My point is that such debacles are going to be costly, not just for the developer, but for the platform owner as well.
Apple, however, transformed the phone industry by bringing that same model to mobile that had already existed in PC/console game storefronts.
The mistake of the platform owners was to believe CDPR when they said they will have fixed all the found problems by release time.
That doesn't resemble anything like my memory of the time. I had multiple general purpose windows mobile phones before iPhones existed. It wasn't limited and it could install apps. Neither Microsoft not the carrier took 30%.
Apple bears all the same costs for iOS and it all comes out of that same 30% fee. For free apps, they eat all those costs.
Hell, Apple provides free in-person customer support as well as support by phone.
> That article has a developer literally saying that in the end, their percentage of the profit on the XBox 360 was a negative number
Then maybe they shouldn't have shipped buggy software. Go back a few years and they'd have shipped a CD/DVD/ROM and no patching available.
I ended up using that phone to take a picture of the background I wanted. Verizon didn't charge for setting wallpapers using pictures taken with the phone!
I switched to a Windows Mobile 6.1 phone (Samsung Blackjack) and it was so liberating. Sync music via USB! Set custom ringtones using your own MP3s and not whatever the Ringtone store was selling for $2.99.