Facebook And Apple Still Fighting Over Gaming Apps

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It’s fair to say that Facebook and Apple don’t really get on. They’re on opposite sides of an increasingly competitive technology war, and they tend to compete with each other on new products and services. There are occasions, though, where they have to work together. When Apple has a new product to advertise, it has to pay for promotion on Facebook. When Facebook has a new app or a new service to offer to users, it has to get that app approved for download from Apple’s App Store. That process appears to be getting more difficult than it used to be for Facebook, and until just a few days ago, it seemed that approval for the Facebook Gaming app wasn’t going to be granted at all.

If you’re an Android user, you might already be aware of Facebook Gaming. The service went live in April this year and has already grown in popularity to become the third most popular game streaming platform after first-placed Twitch and second-placed YouTube. When we say ‘gaming,’ we’re talking orthodox gaming here as opposed to slot games and casino games, which sometimes come under that heading. Facebook does have an online slots casino available as part of its offerings, but that isn’t included in Facebook Gaming, which is mostly built around the ability to watch other people play popular video games. Facebook Gaming’s creators might have felt like they were more likely to get an instant win out of those online slots games than get approval from Apple during the past few months, but it seems like an agreement has now been reached – albeit one that appears to treat Apple users as second-class citizens.

If you’re using the Facebook Gaming app on an Android device, you get the ability to play games as well as watch other people playing them. You can even stream yourself playing those games if you wish to. The games that come with the app aren’t especially complicated, but they’re a neat feature for passing the time. Apple users won’t get to play any of those games. That’s because Apple has denied Facebook the right to publish any version of the app that includes the games more than six times in the past six months, claiming that it violates an App Store policy that relates to any app that’s mostly used to play games. Facebook responded by saying that more than ninety percent of Facebook Gaming app users spend more time watching games than playing them, and so gaming can’t be classed as the app’s main purpose. Apple wouldn’t relent, and so Facebook eventually agreed to cut the games from the app to get past the obstacle. They were far from happy about doing so, though, and accompanied the release of the app to Apple’s App Store with a statement that made it clear that they blame Apple both for the delay and the issue.

It’s sometimes difficult to view Facebook sympathetically, but they’re far from alone in having problems with persuading Apple to accept apps that offer gaming services. Apple insists that any app can be featured in the App Store so long as it adheres to company policy, but companies as large as Microsoft and Google have gone on record to state their belief that Apple selectively ignores its own policies when dealing with apps that come from certain places. Google has failed to get approval for its Stadia app to appear on the App Store, making it almost impossible for iPhone or iPad users to use the platform. Microsoft has had similar problems gaining approval for its xCloud streaming app and has given up on attempting to change Apple’s mind on the issue. Apple has issued a statement outlining its reasons for refusing to grant the necessary permissions, but an outraged Microsoft has gone as far as stating that Apple has become “the only company that denies consumers access to cloud gaming.”

Going further, Microsoft has suggested that Apple treats gaming apps much more harshly than it treats other apps that contain or provide access to interactive content, for example Netflix or Amazon Prime. No high-ranking executive will go on record to say it, but there’s a growing belief that Apple is acting in a way that’s deliberately hostile to any product that could be construed as a competitor to any service that Apple already provides. Many of Apple’s business practices could be construed as a protectionist, and it might be the case that this protectionist viewpoint now extends to the app store. People who make apps that might compete with any app or product that’s been developed or might be developed in the future by Apple might soon find that they struggle to get their apps into the company’s store. No such issues have been reported with Android phones.

While Facebook may not have wanted to cut down its app to gain approval from Apple, it had little choice but to do so if the company wants to expand its presence in the game streaming world. The gap between them and YouTube is significant – it’s currently thought that the service has less than half as many users – and it can’t be closed if the app isn’t available to every user who might want to use it. Both Twitch and YouTube are available through the App Store, and so if Facebook wants to compete with them, they have to be on the App Store too. Even Microsoft, for all of the company’s anger, has confirmed that it’s still trying to work out a way to bring xCloud streaming services to Apple users in the future. We don’t yet know whether Facebook Gaming – as impressive and easy-to-use as the platform is – has what’s required to compete with Twitch in the long term. We do, however, know that it would have zero chance of doing so if Apple device users couldn’t gain access to it.

This won’t be the last time that we hear of issues with Apple’s App Store. The way in which the entire App Store is run has recently been the subject of political scrutiny in the USA, and the more big companies find themselves blocked from access, the more noise there’s likely t be about it. In the meantime, you can now enjoy Facebook’s streaming service on your iPhone, albeit in a reduced format.

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