Apple is facing a lot of heat lately w.r.t to its App Store policies. It already has an Epic Games’ lawsuit pending for next year. Amidst this, the company has taken a sudden step back and made a big announcement that will appease the App developers.

Apple today announced that it’s starting(via XDAdevelopers) a new “App Store Small Business Program”. According to the program, developers who qualify have to pay only a 15% commission. Precisely, if a developer earns less than $1 million in a given year, he is eligible for the program.

This is a big change from Apple who along with Google has recently been criticized for robust commission policies(earlier it was 30% flat). Moving on, Apple says the new program will begin on January 1, 2021. Talking about the program, Apple says it will release a comprehensive details of the policy only in December. However, you can take a look at the gist of it below:

• It includes Existing developers who made up to $1 million in 2020 and new developers to the App Store. They can qualify for the program and the reduced commission.
• If a developer surpasses the $1 million threshold, the standard commission rate will apply for the remainder of the year.
• If a developer’s business falls below the $1 million threshold in a future calendar year, they can requalify for the 15 percent commission the year after.

Anyway, with this new program, the company has reportedly covered around 98% of the companies although they account for only 5% of App Store’s revenue in 2019. According to Apple, App Store revenue in 2019 generated $519 billion revenue with 85% of that benefiting third-party developers. That said, Apple will continue to charge the old 30% commission for those who sell digital goods and services more than $1 million in proceeds.

This is probably because it’s pissed off with the issue over Fortnite, Spotify, and 12 other companies. Back in August, Apple removed Epic Games’ Fortnite game from its App Store. This is because the latter reportedly violated App Store policies and opened direct micro-transactions with a 20% discount. Although Fortnite filed a lawsuit, Apple hit back with a counteraction saying it won’t exempt the game.

Later, it even filed a countersuit demanding seeking punitive damages and a full stop to unfair business practices. This turned hot as both Epic Games, and Spotify now joined together to form a CAF for advocating the Cupertino giant reforms. Let’s hope the new change at least benefits the newcomers in the future.

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Apple has finally gone ahead with the threat to terminate Epic Games’ developer account. The imbroglio between the two companies began when Epic went against the App Store rules by incorporating its own direct payment option on its popular game Fortnite.

Apple had already removed Fortnite from the App Store for a few weeks since the dispute began but left other titles by Epic Games like Battle Breakers and Infinity Blade Stickers‌ With the new development where Epic’s developer account has been terminated, all other Epic Games titles have been yanked off the App Store. A search for Epic Games in the store‌ now returns nothing while on the web, the Epic Games developer account is blank.

The good thing i that if you already downloaded Fortnite, the appcontinues to work but you won’t be ale to any of the new Marvel-themed Season 4 content.

A statement released by Apple confirmed the account has been removed and expressed disappointment that the termination had to happen.

“We are disappointed that we have had to terminate the Epic Games account on the ‌App Store‌. We have worked with the team at Epic Games for many years on their launches and releases. The court recommended that Epic comply with the ‌App Store‌ guidelines while their case moves forward, guidelines they’ve followed for the past decade until they created this situation. Epic has refused. Instead, they repeatedly submit Fortnite updates designed to violate the guidelines of the ‌App Store‌. This is not fair to all other developers on the ‌App Store‌ and is putting customers in the middle of their fight. We hope that we can work together again in the future, but unfortunately, that is not possible today,” the statement read.

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Battle Royale games have taken smartphones by storm in the past one year. Games like PUBG, Fornite have garnered tremendous popularity among smartphone users and it was only a matter of time when other tech giants decided to get their hands dirty in this flourishing market. This time, we are getting a new battle royale game from Xiaomi and its called the Survival Game. The company made the announcement recently via its forums and even started taking applications for its closed beta.

The idea is very similar to popular games like PUBG (New Halloween themed Update). The Survival Game starts off with a lot of players competing against each other. The last player standing is the winner. The game has a lot of sci-fi elements to please the nerd in you and features like the ability to fly for each character is bound to make the game interesting. Xiaomi explained the game as follows:

Each match starts with players flying from the spaceship onto a map area. Players could decide when and where to land on the battlefield. All resources are searched and retrieved from the map, and players can fight with their competitors at any time. The last one standing will be the winner!

Xiaomi’s new battle royale game is said to be optimized on multiple levels. This likely means that the game is being tested on different smartphones in the market today to ensure smooth gameplay. However, the company is yet to reveal support for a specific set of devices. Since we are just entering the closed beta stage, expect at least a few weeks until you hear more about a near commercial release.

The forum post comes with a few preview screenshot of the game. It’s hard to say whether Survival Game could compete with the likes of PUBG or even Fortnite, but coming from a brand like Xiaomi, we do expect some interesting gameplay features and options. Xiaomi was accepting applications for its closed beta test but that period seems to be over. The provided google form has stopped accepting responses which likely means that they have reached a sufficient number of applications well before its deadline.

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Let’s wait and watch how this game develops.

(Source)

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