Linked List: August 14, 2020

Friday, 14 August 2020

Epic’s Campaign for ‘Open Platforms’ Ignores Game Consoles’ Massive Closed Market ★

Kyle Orland, writing at Ars Technica:

Most if not all of the complaints Epic makes against Apple and Google seem to apply to Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo in the console space as well. All three console makers also take a 30-percent cut of all microtransaction sales on their platforms, for example. […]

On mobile platforms, Epic is calling the same kind of 30-percent fee “exorbitant” and says it wants to offer a more direct payment solution so it can “pass along the savings to players.” On consoles, though, Epic happily introduced a permanent 20-percent discount on all microtransaction purchases, despite there being no sign that the console makers have changed their fee structure.

Bingo. This is exactly the point I’ve been trying to make since the Xbox Game Pass controversy last week. Microsoft wants Apple to allow on iOS something they themselves will not allow on Xbox.

If you think Epic is right in principle about iOS and Android, then they ought to be making the same argument about Xbox, PlayStation, and Switch. A computer is a computer. “Consoles” are a business model and user experience design choice, and the iPhone and iPad are effectively app consoles, where games are just one type of app. It’s a shame (in more ways than this) that Apple TV isn’t a bigger player, because it’s just another variant of iOS.

But instead of fighting the game consoles, Epic is taking more of a hit: Fortnite players on Xbox, PlayStation, and Switch get the 20 percent reduction in price while Epic still pays the 30 percent cut of each transaction to the platform vendor. It’s a stunt, pure and simple.

Orland:

Or maybe Epic just has a better relationship with console makers than mobile phone makers. […] Sony recently invested $250 million in Epic and prominently featured Epic’s Unreal Engine 5 in a recent major PlayStation 5 promotional demo, too. Even Nintendo, which traditionally uses its own technology for game development, has begun using Unreal Engine for its own titles in recent years. In a way, Epic can’t attack these platform holders without also attacking itself.

I’m sure that has nothing to do with it.

FactCheck: ‘Trump Proves Biden Right on USPS Funding, Mail-in Ballots’ ★

Eugene Kiely, writing for FactCheck:

In late June, Joe Biden claimed President Donald Trump “wants to cut off money for the post office so they cannot deliver mail-in ballots.” At the time, we wrote that the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee had no evidence of Trump’s ulterior motive — but now he does.

In an Aug. 13 interview, Trump admitted that he opposes a coronavirus pandemic relief bill crafted by the House Democrats because it includes funding the U.S. Postal Service and state election officials — funding that Trump said is needed to allow the Postal Service to handle an expected surge in mail-in voting.

Noah Rothman: “You can always count on Trump to pull the rug out from under you.”

On Trump’s Admitted Surprise at Biden’s Selection of Harris for VP ★

Gabriel Sherman, reporting for Vanity Fair:

Donald Trump didn’t expect Joe Biden to pick Kamala Harris as his running mate. “He thought Biden would choose Karen Bass,” a Republican briefed on Trump’s thinking said. Trump’s view, according to sources close to the White House, was that Biden would prefer a candidate with Bass’s low national profile and one who wouldn’t outshine him.

Trump himself publicly admitted to being surprised Biden chose Harris, on the grounds that she challenged Biden vigorously when she was competing against him for the nomination. Some leaders surround themselves with yes-men who will only tell them what they want to hear. Others surround themselves with independent thinkers who will offer their unvarnished opinion and advice. Trump should be pictured in the dictionary next to the entry for projection, so of course he expected Biden to choose how he himself chose.

Rightfully so, many are pointing to Biden’s choice, and Trump’s professed surprise at that choice, as clear indications of the profound temperamental differences between them.

I would just like to point out what this must be like to observe if you’re Mike Pence, knowing that Trump chose you because he thinks you’re a low-watt bulb with as much flavor as a chewed up piece of gum.

Designing a Logo Without Knowing What It Will Say ★

Jonathan Hoefler, on designing the new Biden-Harris logo without knowing that Kamala Harris would be Joe Biden’s pick for running mate:

I can’t remember an election in which so much attention (and speculation) has surrounded the choice of a running mate, nor having such a large field of eminently qualified candidates to choose from. A consequential decision at an unpredictable time, conducted under absolute secrecy, poses an interesting dilemma to the typographer: how do you create a logo without knowing for certain what the words will say? Logos, after all, are meaningfully informed by the shapes of their letters, and a logo designed for an EISENHOWER will hardly work for a TAFT. The solution, naturally, involves the absurd application of brute force: you just design all the logos you can think of, based on whatever public information you can gather. Every credible suggestion spotted in an op-ed was added to the list that we designers maintained, and not once did the campaign even hint at a preference for one name over another.