GYGO Mobile: More Lawsuits

It’s Wednesday again! I have not been playing mobile games because I got horribly sick, watched a bunch of videos on even further divorcing myself from my phone, and installed a bunch of time-tracking and app-blocking apps on my phone. (Installing apps to block apps is kind of hilarious, now that I write it out.) These apps tend to drain my battery for some reason, so by the end of the day, when I might be tempted to play a mobile game, my phone is simply too close to death to allow it. Is this progress? I do not know.

Israel’s attacks on Palestine continue. The country’s finance minister stated that the Gaza Strip should be “entirely destroyed” following the country’s security cabinet approving plans that could forcibly displace most Palestinians in the region. Israel is also considering taking control of aid distribution within Gaza, a move that the UN has condemned, especially as Israel’s near-total blockade has already prevented aid and commercial goods, including food, to enter Gaza for two months. There is little food left for kitchens to cook, on top of limited access to water and fuel. In addition to our usual suggestions to donate to one of the many crowdfunding campaigns at GazaFunds.com, consider contacting your elected officials (US residents can do this via ActionNetwork, though I recommend updating the template email and calling or writing a letter as well as an email) and demanding that they work to restore access for humanitarian aid to Gaza. Though their aid trucks are unable to enter Gaza due to the blockade, World Central Kitchen is still accepting donations to bring water, food, and supplies to the region as soon as Israel lifts the blockade. The conditions in Gaza right now are horrifying and harrowing, but we must keep up pressure on those in power to change things. Contact your elected officials. Protest. Donate. Talk with your friends, your family, your neighbors. Use our own Zainabb Hull’s Crips for Palestine newsletter to find digital actions to take each week. Believe in a free Palestine.

The Court Takes a Big Bite out of Apple’s Fees

In an interview with Business Insider, Epic Games CEO and Number One Apple Hater Tim Sweeney discussed Epic’s five-year legal battle with Apple’s App Store. More specifically, Sweeney discussed a recent ruling in the case that would allow game developers and many other companies impacted by Apple’s 30% fees to accept payments outside of the App Store and to direct consumers to those alternate payment options. The ruling will likely bring Fortnite back to iOS, where it has been absent for almost five years. Sweeney told Business Insider that the lawsuit has cost the company over $100 million in legal fees alone. According to a tweet from Sweeney, Epic will drop current and future litigation against Apple if the company will extend the ruling worldwide.

For a more thorough report on the ruling, The Verge discusses what exactly went on, what the changes will be, and how they’ll affect users and companies using Apple’s App Store. The most important parts for users are that Apple cannot collect fees for purchases made on outside apps like Patreon or the Epic Games Store. Apple no longer has the ability to limit buttons or other calls to action that would take a user out of the App Store, and must allow them to leave with nothing more than “a neutral message apprising users that they are going to a third-party site.” Apple, naturally, plans to appeal the decision.

TechCrunch rounded up some of the juiciest bits of the ruling from Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers, who they describe as “really, really pissed off” at Apple (emphasis theirs). In the ruling, Judge Rogers states that Apple’s response to the injunction “strains credulity” and stated that the VP of Finance Alex Roman “lied under oath.” I know legal documents aren’t typically exciting reading, but Judge Rogers does indeed sound royally pissed. It is, dare I say it, kind of nice to see Apple and their outrageous business practices get so thoroughly roasted by someone who isn’t Tim Sweeney for a change. She might actually be giving Number One Apple Hater Tim Sweeney a run for his money.

In more rough news for Apple, the EU has hit them with a $570 million fine for yet another violation of the Digital Markets Act, once again preventing developers from directing users out of the App Store and into third-party payment systems, where options may have been cheaper.

More Lawsuits for Roblox

Apple and Epic aren’t the only ones in the lawsuit news this month. TikTok choreographer Kelly Heyer, who created last year’s viral “Apple” dance set to the Charli XCX track, is suing Roblox for using the dance in the Dress to Impress Charli XCX event in August of last year. Heyer and Roblox were reportedly in talks to license the dance, but Roblox released the event before they came to an agreement, and Heyer copyrighted the dance shortly after the event launched. According to Heyer’s lawsuit, Roblox has made over $100,000 on the “Apple” emote. Heyer successfully worked with Fortnite to bring another dance she choreographed to that game last year.

But that’s not all! A teenager from Florida is suing both Roblox and Discord for facilitating alleged sexual abuse and exploitation. According to the lawsuit, the teenager began using Roblox at age 12 (she is now 18) and was groomed by an older man, who manipulated and coerced her into sending explicit material, which he then blackmailed her with. The lawsuit extends beyond the teenager in question, suggesting that the exploitation of children is a systemic issue on both platforms. One lawyer involved in the case, Anapol Weiss, is involved in another suit against Roblox claiming that sexual exploitation of a minor, in this case a 13 year old boy, took place in the game. In a response to Polygon, a Roblox spokesperson calmed that the company is “deeply committed to the safety and well-being of our community and protecting children is a top priority.”

I mean, Roblox says a lot of things. They did just launch new parental controls that will enable parents to block people on their child’s friends list and prevent them from being added again, which is… not nothing, I suppose? It’s quite close to nothing but I suppose it is something.

In further Roblox news, 80% of users for the game play on mobile, with 46% of revenue coming from those users. Honestly? I forget that Roblox is available on other platforms. The company also announced that they would be enabling regional pricing for in-game items, allowing creators to choose what items should be priced regionally and which should not. In tests of this program, regionally priced items generated more revenue even when sold for a lower cost.

And not Roblox, but related: Genshin Impact announced that players in the United States will soon have to provide age verification to play. This is likely due to a Federal Trade Commission settlement with Genshin Impact publisher HoYoverse charging that the company deceived minors in their lootbox practices. It is unclear from the announcement what this verification process will look like.

In other news…

Monopoly Go has made $5 billion in just two years. I can proudly say that I contributed $0 toward this cause. For comparison, Genshin Impact took 40 months to hit this milestone.

Final Fantasy XIV is on its way to mobile and could be launching on August 29, according to a listing in the Chinese version of Apple’s App Store. There has been no official word on the launch date from Square Enix. The mobile version of the game will be designed to be played in shorter settings, and will be separate from the PC and console version, which are available for crossplay.

Thanks to a boost from A Minecraft Movie, Minecraft’s daily mobile earnings have hit just shy of a million dollars, a three-year high. Please be sure to read that sentence carefully: that’s daily earnings. The game is $6.99 on Android’s Play Store, meaning they were making the equivalent of 100,000 people downloading it per day, though Minecraft also makes money from microtransactions for in-game skins. That’s a lot of money! That’s a lot of potential downloads! Damn!

The Angry Birds Movie 3 is coming to theaters in January of 2027, if you were waiting to find out what those grumpy little guys were up to. I was going to make a little joke about the controversy over one of the titular birds being classified as an ally in a Pride event, but not being an Angry Birds fan myself, I forgot which. Googling led me to the delightful LGBT Characters page on the Angry Birds Wiki, which links to Stella, who appears in front of a lesbian flag in a Pride Month post from the Angry Birds Twitter account, as well as Red. Now, I can find no evidence that Red is queer on the page itself (which, admittedly, I refuse to read all of), but Reddit user Remarkable-Gap9881 has compiled evidence that Red is gay for reasons I do not comprehend. Having read the post, they sure are right that some of this evidence puts the “Miracle of Life” Angry Birds Toons episode referenced in the Kotaku piece (described as an episode in which Chuck and Red are “locked in a cage by the evil pigs to make them fuck”) in a new light. I cannot believe that this is a real thing that exists, and you have to watch it, because you won’t either.