Comment by musicale
10 hours ago
When games went "free to play", platform commissions for in-app purchases (sometimes misleadingly called "payment processing charges") were the only way that walled-garden game stores could make money from them.
The irony is that Japanese game platforms have been using the walled-garden licensing and platform fee business model for more than 40 years[1], and it continues today in the Nintendo eShop and PSN store. I doubt Nintendo and Sony are going to reduce their platform fees just because developers don't like them.[2]
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIC_(Nintendo)
[2] https://www.1d3.com/blog/platform-fees
Interestingly enough the Wikipedia article claims that Nintendo introduced DRM and licensing to combat shovelware. But shovelware on Nintendo platforms has continued to be a problem from the Wii to the current Switch eShop.
You are 100% right! The difference is that a phone is necessity that tends to a monopoly, unlike say a PlayStation or a handheld game platform. But no question in the game space where you can choose platforms, a walled garden is great. That's why Steam is really good, and if it wasn't you could get your games from the Windows app store, or the Epic Store..
The phone/necessity part of smartphones seems largely independent from the game store part, since you can usually choose from multiple wireless providers, sms/mms (and now rcs) all work, email works, and web browsers also work.