![[Customer Story] Why TestDome Considers FastSpring a Real Partner](https://fastspring.com/wp-content/themes/fastspring-bamboo/images/promotional/2023/FastSpring-TestDome-blog-thumbnail.jpg)
A massive new ruling was released on April 30, with a judge declaring that Apple’s anti-steering policies for purchases outside of apps are anticompetitive and to be discontinued, effective immediately.
Furthermore, the judge ruled, Apple is not allowed to collect fees on purchases made outside apps (i.e., purchases made on web stores).
This is a significant win in the democratization of payments, but what does it mean for your game? What should you do, and what does the future hold? We’ll break it down.
What Does the April 30 Ruling Against Apple Mean?
The biggest change here is in how you can market your web store. Per the ruling, Apple is prevented from “restricting or conditioning developers’ style, language, formatting, quantity, flow or placement of links for purchases outside of an app” and “prohibiting or limiting the use of buttons or other calls to action … for purchases outside an app.”
These are two in a list of six restraints against Apple ordered by the court; to read all six, see page 75 of the ruling (document hosted by Reuters and linked to from their own article on the Apple ruling).
What Should You Do in Response to the Apple Ruling?
With these rapidly changing guidelines, you can jump in and be one of the first to take action, or you can wait for other publishers to launch and see how Apple reacts. Let’s weigh the benefits of each approach.
By taking action today, you can leverage the new ruling to more aggressively market your web store. This could include previously non-viable strategies such as directly promoting your web store in your game, or even presenting a direct pricing comparison of your web store vs. your mobile store.
The benefit of waiting, however, would be to see how other publishers take action from this ruling, and to understand how Apple reacts. It’s important to bear in mind that this ruling only pertains to the U.S. and that Apple still has means of influencing behavior in a way that suits their business. For instance, a game linking directly into its web store would become less profitable for Apple and therefore could be given less visibility in the App Store.
The sooner you capitalize on this new ruling, the more profitable your game will become, but it’s not completely without risk until we have a clearer picture of how this will look in practice.
What Does the Future Hold for D2C Monetization?
The landscape here will evolve quickly. Apple has said they will comply, but they’ve also said they will appeal. There are likely further regulations to come on this matter, and beyond that, the pressure of this ruling may force Apple to make mobile payments more competitive (e.g., lowering commission rates or offering promotion within the store).
It’s critical you have a trusted source to help you stay on top of these evolving terms of engagement. Understanding what’s changing and how to react is more important now than ever before.
A Bigger Pie for All
Until now, fear of Apple’s restrictions has been the biggest reason mobile developers held back from going D2C. The game just changed, and that fear is fading fast.
At FastSpring, we’ve helped some of the biggest game publishers in the world launch and scale their D2C stores. We’d love to help you do the same.
Welcome to the more profitable future of mobile gaming.
Monetize Your Game With FastSpring
FastSpring is how gaming publishers sell in more places around the world. For nearly two decades, FastSpring has been a trusted payment provider you can use to sell games or in-game items on your website, web shop, or embedded directly into your game with fully customizable and branded checkouts just for you. FastSpring allows you to offload the complexity of global payments, sales tax and VAT compliance, player payments support, and many other aspects of payments management. Spend less time managing your payments and compliance and more time making great games! To learn more about how FastSpring supports game developers, visit fastspring.gg/.
Ready to get started? Set up a demo or try it out for yourself.
