The 30% cut that Apple takes from any and all revenue that apps and games make off of the App Store has been a contentious topic for a long time, and really came to a head earlier this year thanks to their ongoing legal dispute with Epic Games. It seems, however, that they’re relaxing their stance on that to some extent.

The company has announced (via The Verge) that, starting January 1, 2021, they will be slashing their revenue cut to 15% for all indie app developers, thanks to the new App Store Small Business Program. Essentially, if an app is making less than $1 million in revenue per year, it only needs to pay half as much of the revenue cut and cut from in-app purchases compared to what has been the standard up until now.

As per apple, the vast majority of developers using the App Store will be able to avail of this program, though they haven’t provided exact numbers for what that vast majority entails exactly.

“Small businesses are the backbone of our global economy and the beating heart of innovation and opportunity in communities around the world,” says Apple CEO Tim Cook. “We’re launching this program to help small business owners write the next chapter of creativity and prosperity on the App Store, and to build the kind of quality apps our customers love. The App Store has been an engine of economic growth like none other, creating millions of new jobs and a pathway to entrepreneurship accessible to anyone with a great idea. Our new program carries that progress forward — helping developers fund their small businesses, take risks on new ideas, expand their teams, and continue to make apps that enrich people’s lives.”

Apple says more information on the App Store Small Business Program will be coming in December.

While there are some who maintain that Pokemon GO is dead, fizzled out, and gone, the fact remains that it is in fact one of the most popular games in the world right now, with hundreds of millions of players playing it on a daily basis. And if you wanted more proof of that, here you are- the game was the lead contributor to a surge in the App Store’s revenues during Christmas Eve week.

During that week, the App Store generated a staggering $890 million in revenues, and Pokemon GO, which returned to the top of the charts, was an important contributor to that number, according to GamesIndustry.biz. A lot of this has to do with the game’s adoption of Apple’s brand new ARKit features, which led Apple to aggressively market it, too.

Pokemon GO is now on the third generation of Pokemon (Ruby/Sapphire); it is available on iOS and Android devices.

[GamesIndustry]

As one of the biggest stories of 2017, the Loot Box and whether or not it can be considered gambling is sure to be one big theme going into the new year. Ahead of any Government intervention, new Apple guidelines for App Store submission now include one major new caveat, Loot Boxes on their platform must disclose their odds.

Whether or not this is in direct response to Electronic Arts putting the Loot Box monetization mechanic into the hot seat or not, the end result is that people are more informed about what they’re paying for, which is only a good thing for customers, and something any developer on the level shouldn’t have issues with. Markets where Loot Box type mechanics are banned completely, such as China, have found loopholes, but the more out in the open the issue is, the better.

As far as other news on the Mobile front, Pokemon Go is now leveraging Apple’s AR kit for a more involved experience. Do you want to see more movements like these to inform people about what’s in a loot box? Let us know in the comments.

Apple now mandates that games with loot boxes must disclose the odds of receiving items to users. https://t.co/kR778TcGRb pic.twitter.com/ovoVv18a1f

— Daniel Ahmad (@ZhugeEX) December 21, 2017

It looks like digital games are now an indelible part of the gaming landscape- they continue to comprise an increasingly large portion of game sales, and represent a 74% share of the overall pie, according to a report released by the Entertainment Software Association (via Games Industry).

This, of course, explains why dedicated US game retailers like GameStop are struggling- more and more people are used to getting their games digitally, as digital game purchases and downloads become increasingly normalized. However, this is important- that 74% figure includes full game digital downloads, subscriptions, DLC, social, and mobile- with the latter only being available digitally, and representing a massive part of the market, the 74% figure makes more sense.

Given the push towards digital by Xbox, PlayStation, and even Nintendo going forward, as well as the continued growth of mobile, VR, and PC gaming, it will be interesting to see just how much that figure rises in the coming months and years.

Look, there is a real and indisputable problem with mobile gaming- the storefronts through which these games are sold are hardly curated, meaning all sorts of crap eventually manages to make its way through to consumers. And while quality control is something we can debate all day long, the larger issue is when obvious knock offs, which are in clear violation of copyright law, and which generally mislead customers and exist to scam them out of their money, manage to make their way to the storefronts too.

Such a thing has happened right now. If you visit the App Store from an iOS device, you will find a listing for Minecraft: Pocket Edition 2 (adding insult to injury is the fact that it is currently charting high on the Paid Apps list). The title of the app would suggest that it is a sequel to the first Minecraft game’s mobile version- and indeed, the description of the game would suggest that too:

“Minecraft is a game about breaking and placing blocks. Minecraft II is taking those activities to a whole new level of excellence and uniqueness. At first, people built structures to protect against nocturnal monsters, but as the game grew players worked together to create wonderful, imaginative things.

“Explore randomly generated worlds and build amazing things from the simplest of homes to the grandest of castles. Play in creative mode with unlimited resources or mine deep into the world in survival mode, crafting weapons and armor to fend off the dangerous mobs.

“Craft, create, and explore alone, or with friends on mobile devices or Windows 10.”

It’s a well written blurb, unlike so many other scam or knock off products, and the mention of other copyrighted properties like Windows 10 would probably allay any fears you may have had. Unfortunately, Minecraft: Pocket Edition 2 is not an official product. It’s a scam made by someone called Viktor Todorov (though on the game’s official page, the developer is listed as Scott Cawthorn, possibly in an attempt to mislead customers into associating the game with the developer of the Five Nights at Freddy’s series, Scott Cawthon).

Worse than the copyright infringement, however, is the nature of the product itself. The game advertises itself using screenshots from Minecraft, misleading players into thinking that the game will play like that. Unfortunately, the actual game is nothing like Minecraft– according to Eurogamer, who have discovered this knock off via Reddit, it is a “terrible top-down swipe game” which eventually crashes your phone.

You want to know what somehow manages to make it even worse? Worse than the fact that it infringes upon multiple copyrights, worse than the fact that it misleads customers, worse than the fact that it is a terrible product? It’s the fact that it costs £5 (or $11)- it’s a terrible product that doesn’t even have the decency to be free, or cheap.

Eurogamer has gotten in touch with Mojang, and received an official statement.

“It’s great that Minecraft has inspired people to create amazing things, but when a product attempts to dupe our community or exploit their enthusiasm for the game, it’s our responsibility to step in,” Mojang’s Owen Hill said.

“Our dedicated enforcement team are extremely busy!”

Meanwhile, of course, we are all left wondering if this is truly what mobile gaming has become- exploitative and scammy at the best of times, but at the worst, an uncurated wild west where games that are buggy, misleading, and illegal end up somehow rising to the top of the charts.

The last time something like this happened, there was a video games crash- that may be the direction that mobile gaming is headed in itself.

Apple’s iOS platforms may be some of the most popular and leading platforms for video games worldwide, for both, developers and consumers, but a lot of the policies governing the App Store, and all apps sold on it, are relics of an older age- such as the app size restriction, which mandated that no app on the App Store can be larger than 2GB.

Today, Apple relaxed that restriction, with the new maximum file size per app being 4GB. Which is still hardly close to as big as the 25GB on Nintendo’s Wii U, or 50GB on PS4 or Xbox One, but it’s a start.

“The size limit of an app package submitted through iTunes Connect has increased from 2 GB to 4 GB, so you can include more media in your submission and provide a more complete, rich user experience upon installation. Please keep in mind that this change does not affect the cellular network delivery size limit of 100 MB,” Apple’s new app guidelines read.

For comparison, the Nintendo 3DS allows games and apps as big as 8GB; the PS Vita, on the other hand, had a restriction of a maximum of 4GB per game, which was lifted last year with the release of Borderlands 2.

This should come as welcome news to game makers as well, particularly the ambitious ones like Square Enix, who have expressed displeasure at the app size limit in the past before.

Trials Frontier sees you playing as a drifter who’s scouted by one of the few remaining communities in the world to become a hero. You’ll be racing through tracks and earning enough to purchase new gear and even new rids to complete missions before running into the town’s villain Butch. There will be more bikes and missions to discover as you traverse across new maps though and a new infinite multiplayer brawl will allow you to compete with friends. Time challenges and leaderboards are also included in the game.

In other news, Trials Fusion will be available for consoles on April 16th while a PC release is slated for April 24th. Connect Trials Frontier to the game and you’ll be able to unlock bonus gear.

After teasing that we’d see Shenmue’s Ryo in Sonic & Sega All Stars Racing Transformed, Sega has announced that the kart racing game is available now for iOS. It is compatible with iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch with iOS 7 or later, weighs 1 GB and costs $4.99. Hit up the App Store here to purchase it.

Transformed includes several tracks and ten racers with mobile features such as daily and weekly challenges, touch-optimized controls and schemes, a revamped World Tour mode and much more. Unlike its predecessor, this title focuses more on multiple vehicle formats such as planes and boats along with the typical kart racing, and you’ll be switching between these formats several times within a track.

You can check out our review of the game here. Will you be picking up the game for iOS? Let us know what think of this development in the comments below and whether it’s more fun than the console version.

Harebrained Schemes, the minds behind Shadowrun Returns, the first $1 million+ Kickstarter video game project that released earlier this year on Steam, the App Store, and Google Play to great success, have announced the next entry to the game, Shadowrun: Dragonfall.

Shadowrun: Dragonfall will function as an expansion to Shadowrun Returns, and it will be made available on Windows PCs, Mac OSX, and Linux this January on Steam and on GOG; tablet versions for both iOS and Android will follow shortly. The game will retail for $14.99, and will require Shadowrun Returns to play. A compilation called Shadowrun Campaign Pack, which includes both the base game and the expansion, will also be made available for $24.99.

Shadowrun: Dragonfall will be set in a cyberpunk Berlin setting, and it will contain a multitude of new enhancements and features, including a new story, new weapons, cyberware, and attacks, as well as (finally!) the ability to save anywhere, at any time.

“I’m delighted that our Kickstarter Backers chose Berlin as the location for our next big expansion.” said Jordan Weisman, founder of Harebrained Schemes. “It’s the perfect setting to show off all the new gameplay and features we’ve added in this expansion. Our design team has done a fantastic job of building on the work we started withShadowrun Returns. I couldn’t be happier.”

There are times when Google’s absolutely hands off, uncurated approach to its Google Play app store has merits, which definitely put it over Apple’s almost anal control of the App Store. This is not one of those times.

iFruit, the GTA V companion app that Rockstar recently released to iOS users, which allows them to make customized license plates, customize their cars, and train their dog (no, seriously), has spawned countless imitators on the Google Play store. And many of these, Rockstar warns, might be malware.

This is, of course, an issue with the Google Play Store, but maybe the issue wouldn’t have arisen in the first place had Rockstar simply released its iFruit app to everyone. That’s not to say they aren’t- they’re at work developing the app for not only Android, but also Windows Phone, PlayStation Mobile, and PlayStation Vita. So unless you’re a BlackBerry user, you’re likely to be able to access the app soon.

In the meanwhile, unless you own an Apple device, don’t download any iFruit or iFruit-like app that you might run into on your app store.

[CVG]