Apple's draconian App Store policies have been criticized time and time again, and most recently, they led to a lawsuit by Epic Games. The company also recently blocked game streaming services like Google Stadia and Xbox Game Streaming from entering the App Store. Apple has now updated its policies to allow game streaming services, but only if they go through many hoops.

The App Store Review Guidelines have been updated with a new section specifically addressing streaming games. While Apple technically now allows services like Xbox Game Streaming and Google Stadia on the App Store, they would have to publish each game as an individual app on the App Store. "Each streaming game," Apple said, "must be submitted to the App Store as an individual app so that it has an App Store product page, appears in charts and search, has user ratings and review, can be managed with ScreenTime and other parental control apps, appears on the user’s device, etc."

That's an incredible amount of extra work for streaming services, and it would also create added friction for customers — imagine having to install a bookmark for every TV show on Netflix that you wanted to watch. Each individual game would also be subject to the usual review requirements, which includes using Apple's payment system for in-app purchases, which takes a 30% cut.

Apple also adds fuel to the fire by insisting that "there is always the open Internet and web browser apps to reach all users outside of the App Store." However, the company doesn't allow third-party web engines, and Safari doesn't support many modern APIs that would be required to create a web-based version of Stadia or Xbox Game Streaming.

Source: Apple

Via: The Verge