Apple Now Allows Game Streaming Apps in the App Store Worldwide

Here’s some good news that was lost in the blizzard of news and commentary surrounding Apple’s bad-faith compliance with EU DMA regulations: The consumer electronics giant will finally allow game streaming apps in its App Store, and it will do so worldwide.

“Apple is introducing new options for how apps globally can deliver in-app experiences to users, including streaming games,” a post to the Apple Developer blog explains. “Developers can now submit a single app with the capability to stream all of the games offered in their catalog. Apps will also be able to provide enhanced discovery opportunities for streaming games.”

As you may recall, Microsoft tried to bring its Xbox Cloud Gaming service to the iPhone and iPad in 2020, after testing the service—then called “Project xCloud”—publicly for about a year. But Apple rejected this app, demanding that the software giant instead offer each of the games in that service as separate apps that would be subject to its 30 percent App Store and in-app payment fees. It then announced new policies specifically forbidding game streaming apps, despite long allowing music and video streaming services that operate identically.

As I wrote at the time, Apple had two good reasons to reject Xbox Cloud Gaming and other game streaming services. Most of its App Store revenues come from games, and if game streaming apps were successful, they could undercut those revenues. And because Apple was overly-reliant on iPhone hardware sales at the time—over 80 percent of its revenues then came from the iPhone—game streaming services that abstract the hardware and allow modern titles to run on lower-end devices could undermine those sales as well.

This kind of restriction isn’t just illegal, it’s a textbook example of monopoly maintenance and restraint of trade, and Microsoft complained bitterly at the time. But it finally offered a workaround to Xbox fans with iPhones and iPads by offering a web client for Xbox Cloud Gaming that works in the Safari web browser on those devices.

That was almost three years ago. So what changed? A few things come to mind.

Most importantly and obviously, the EU is finally cracking down on Big Tech’s illegal business behavior in the EU with DMA regulations that target monopoly “gatekeeper” platforms like Apple’s App Store. Second, Apple is less reliant on iPhone sales now that its services business is taking off: In the most recent quarter, the iPhone accounted for just 49 percent of the firm’s revenues. And third, game streaming services aren’t a viable market, as I pointed out many times during the FTC/CMA drama last year, so they’re no threat to Apple’s game revenues. Besides, most Xbox Cloud Gaming subscribers play on Xbox consoles anyway.

Apple doesn’t address the why of its policy change, but I’m fascinated that it is making this change worldwide. And now I’m wondering how quickly Microsoft will add Xbox Cloud Gaming capabilities to its Xbox Game Pass app for iPhone and iPad. You have to think it’s been prepping this app update in anticipation of offering it just in the EU.

Allowing game streaming apps isn’t the only App Store policy change that Apple is making worldwide: It is also allowing developers to deliver so-called mini-apps—in-app experiences like plugins, but also mini-games and chatbots—to their users. These mini-apps will be subject to the same rules as apps, and if they’re paid offerings, Apple will of course get its cut.

Apple is also providing new app performance analytics tools to developers and the ability to opt-out of “Sign in with Apple” if they offer “an equivalent privacy-focused login service instead.”