There’s a lot going on in the battle between Apple and Epic. And while you could and probably should argue that it’s about more than the 30% cut Apple is taking from Fortnite, that’s undoubtedly one core element.¹ Those in the pro-Apple camp are quick to note that this is the standard cut in the gaming industry. As is Apple. And they’re not wrong. But that doesn’t make it right.

苹果与Epic之间的战斗 正在进行中。 虽然您可能并且可能应该辩称， 这比苹果从Fortnite 削减30％的价格要多，但这无疑是一个核心要素。¹亲Apple阵营的人很快注意到这是游戏中的标准削减行业。 苹果也是如此 。 而且他们没有错。 但这并不正确。

As Takashi Mochizuki for Bloomberg reminded us yesterday, the whole 30% cut has a sort of humorous/fascinating history in the gaming industry:

正如彭博社(Bloomberg)的望月高史(Takashi Mochizuki)提醒我们的那样 ，整个30％的削减在游戏行业中具有幽默/迷人的历史：

But what was the 30% supposed to pay for in the first place? It was the Nintendo Entertainment System that first introduced the platform fee in the early 1980s. It began when Namco Ltd., the creator of Pac-Man and a major provider of arcade games at the time, wanted to expand its distribution via Nintendo’s nascent console — called the Famicom when it was released in 1983 in Japan. Namco got together with another game maker, Hudson Soft Co. (creator of Bomberman), to persuade Nintendo Co. to open its platform to outside software makers, according to Hisakazu Hirabayashi, an independent industry consultant.

但是，首先要支付的30％是什么？ 任天堂娱乐系统在1980年代初首次引入了平台收费。 它始于Namco Ltd.(当时是Pac-Man的创建者，当时是大型街机游戏的主要提供商)想要通过Nintendo新生的游戏机(Famicom，1983年在日本发布)来扩大发行范围。 独立行业顾问Hisakazu Hirabayashi表示，Namco与另一家游戏制造商Hudson Soft Co.(轰炸机的创始人)一起，说服Nintendo Co.向外部软件制造商开放其平台。

Both were eager to be on Nintendo’s popular console, but Hudson couldn’t make its own cartridges, according to Hirabayashi. And so Namco proposed paying Nintendo a 10% licensing fee to be able to be on the console while Hudson paid an additional 20% for Nintendo to make its game cartridges. Nintendo agreed — and that two-component fee, licensing and manufacturing, became the basis of today’s 30% “tax.”

据Hirabayashi称，两人都渴望使用任天堂最受欢迎的游戏机，但哈德森无法制造自己的墨盒。 因此，Namco建议向Nintendo支付10％的许可费，以便能够在控制台上使用，而Hudson为Nintendo支付了20％的附加费以制造游戏墨盒。 任天堂同意了，分两部分的费用，许可和制造费成为当今30％“税”的基础。

The 10% Namco proposed to pay Nintendo to get on to their console sounds reasonable. But a full 20% of the 30% fee we all now live with stems from Hudson paying Nintendo to produce the physical game cartridges.

10％的N amco建议向Nintendo支付以继续使用其控制台听起来很合理。 但是，我们现在所生活的30％费用中，有20％来自哈德森付给任天堂生产物理游戏卡带的费用 。

I don’t know about you, but it has been a looooong time since I’ve used a game cartridge. Maybe since the Nintendo 64? The world subsequently moved on to optical discs or memory cards, which are, of course, much cheaper to produce. More recently, the world has shifted to fully digital distribution. All iOS devices fall into the latter camp, obviously.

我不了解您，但是自从我使用游戏卡带以来，这已经是很漫长的时间了。 也许自从Nintendo 64以来？ 随后，世界转向了光盘或存储卡，它们当然便宜得多。 最近，世界已经转向全数字发行。 显然，所有iOS设备都属于后者。

And yet Apple still charges the 30% fee to game developers. As do the other platform owners. It’s a standard because it’s a standard, even though every other standard for this business has changed.

然而，苹果仍然向游戏开发商收取30％的费用。 和其他平台所有者一样。 这是一个标准，因为这是一个标准，即使此业务的所有其他标准都已更改。

Are there other costs associated with gaming infrastructure now? Sure. And soon streaming is going to be a big one, it would seem. But 20% big? Maybe! But the odds that the cut would be and should be the exact same as producing a physical cartridge to ship out to millions of customers seems… low.

现在还有与游戏基础设施相关的其他费用吗？ 当然。 看起来，流媒体很快将成为一个大问题。 但是20％大吗？ 也许！ 但是削减的可能性和应该与生产要向数百万客户发货的物理墨盒完全相同的可能性似乎很小。

The iPhone, of course, does a lot more than play games. And actually, the real history of the 30% cut from the App Store is seemingly more directly tied to iTunes. That is, Steve Jobs decided Apple should take such a cut of paid apps (this was an era before in-app purchases — but it became the standard there as well, of course) in order to “keep the lights on” in the App Store. And he likely chose that cut because it’s the same amount Apple got from the music labels when $0.99 tracks were sold in the iTunes Store. Back when such a thing was also still the norm. And became a standard.

当然，iPhone的功能不只是玩游戏。 实际上，App Store裁员30％的真实历史似乎与iTunes直接相关 。 也就是说，史蒂夫·乔布斯(Steve Jobs)决定苹果应该削减这样的付费应用程序(这是在应用程序内购买之前的时代，但当然它也成为了其中的标准)，以便在应用程序中保持“开灯亮”。商店。 他可能选择了降幅，因为当iTunes Store中的歌曲售价为0.99美元时，这与苹果从音乐唱片公司获得的收入是相同的。 回来的时候，这种事情仍然很普遍。 并成为标准。

With such arbitrary history in mind, you can see why developers are starting to push back against the 30%. The App Store has allowed businesses to be created that could never have been dreamed of when the iPhone launched. And game cartridges are more long gone than Hudson Soft itself. Yet the 30% remains.

考虑到如此随意的历史记录，您可以了解为什么开发人员开始将30％的价格往后推 。 App Store允许创建iPhone推出之初就无法梦想的业务。 而且游戏卡带比哈德森软弹本身早已消失了。 然而，仍有30％。

If I were Epic, for my next troll, I would agree to pay the 30% but only if Apple mass-produces cartridges of Fortnite.

如果我是Epic，则在我的下一个巨魔下，我同意支付30％的费用，但前提是Apple大量生产Fortnite墨盒。

¹ The bigger issue, of course, is that Epic nor any other gaming company can use their own payment plans or infrastructure within the App Store. Which is to say that if their game is on iOS and they make money from it, they have to pay Apple 30% of that money. Again, I don’t think anyone is saying Apple doesn’t deserve a cut for the platform and services they offer, but in an ideal world they would get at least part of that bounty by competing with the best offerings (such as in-app payments versus Epic payments or whatnot).

¹当然，更大的问题是Epic或任何其他游戏公司都可以在App Store中使用他们自己的付款计划或基础设施。 这就是说，如果他们的游戏是在iOS上并且从中获利，则必须向苹果支付30％的钱。 同样，我不认为任何人在说苹果不值得的平台和服务，他们提供了一个伤口，但在一个理想的世界里，他们会用最好的产品竞争 (如在-获取该奖金的至少一部分应用付款与Epic付款还是其他付款)。