Seemingly everyone in tech is talking about a huge ruling in the long-running Epic Games v. Apple dispute:
[J]udge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers just ruled that, effective immediately, Apple is no longer allowed to collect fees on purchases made outside apps and blocks the company from restricting how developers can point users to where they can make purchases outside of apps. Apple says it will appeal the order.
As part of the ruling, the judge says that Apple cannot: Impose “any commission or any fee on purchases that consumers make outside an app... interfere with consumers’ choice to leave an app with anything beyond “a neutral message apprising users that they are going to a third-party site”.
Epic head Tim Sweeney has called his dispute with Apple (and Google) a battle for the Metaverse, since most metaverse platform users access the virtual world through their smartphone -- but because Apple and Google charge a 30% cut on in-app purchases, and metaverse platform companies are hugely hobbled.
Now, the mobile version of Epic's Fortnite -- and Roblox, and VRChat, and Rec Room, and yes, Linden Lab's Second Life -- can enable in-app purchases without that huge 30% fee, or even encourage users to buy virtual currency from their website.
Reached earlier today, Linden Lab head Brad Oberwager is cautiously optimistic:
"This is very good news for the residents and the creators," as he put it to me. "At the same time, we don’t want to be 'first' in pushing the envelope. No resident is at a disadvantage because they all know how to buy Linden dollars on desktop.
"But wouldn’t it be great if they could do it on their phone without the 30% Apple fee?"
Yes. And also, many new SL users will expect (and only know about) purchasing virtual currency through their smartphone app. So I would expect that to be possible fairly soon-ish. (Probably after Fortnite and Roblox test those waters.)
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