Epic Games has been in a legal dispute with Apple for over 6 months now. This was triggered by a change to the real-money currency in Fortnite. Now the company led by Epic founder and CEO Tim Sweeney has filed another lawsuit, this time in Europe.
What happened? As Epic announced on its own website , a new lawsuit has been filed in Europe. It states that Apple has integrated a “carefully planned anticompetitive restriction” into its own store.
Tim Sweeney stated in the post, which is illustrated with the slogan “Free Fortnite”:
Consumers have the right to install apps from sources of their choice, and developers have the right to compete in a fair market. We will not stand idly by and allow Apple to use its platform dominance to control what should be a level digital playing field.
This is bad for consumers, who pay inflated prices due to the lack of competition between stores and in-app payment processing. And it is bad for developers, whose livelihoods often depend on Apple’s complete discretion over who they allow on the iOS platform and under what conditions.
Epic has previously sued Apple in the USA, the UK, and Australia.
Epic CEO wants to change the gaming industry
What is the lawsuit about? In August 2020, Epic decided to sell the currency V-Bucks directly in the iOS version of Fortnite. Previously, the currency had to be purchased through the App Store, which incurred additional fees that went to Apple.
- Apple consequently removed Fortnite from the App Store and Google followed suit.
- In response, Epic Games sued Apple and Google.
- This led to a dispute, during which Apple closed all developer accounts of Epic developers. This also affected games and developers using Epic’s Unreal Engine.
- However, a court ruled that this behavior was unlawful, after which these developers were unlocked again.
- Fortnite is still not found in the App Store or Play Store. We will tell you here how you can still play Fortnite on iOS.
Sweeney claims to want to change the gaming industry. He is disturbed that (indie) developers are at the mercy of the stores and have to pay large sums for the service.
Apple allegedly retains up to 30% of the revenues through the App Store, whether for game or in-game purchases. There is no way to offer the app outside of the proprietary store on iOS devices. This is exactly what is being criticized.
Recently, the Epic CEO emphasized in an interview how exhausting and costly the fight against Apple is, but that they still want to continue.
Epic is not only fighting against Apple: Besides the lawsuit against Apple, Epic is also trying to encourage competitor Steam to rethink. Here too, developers have to give up to 30% of their revenues.
Sweeney called for the share to be lowered to 12%. Then Epic would also publish its own games on Steam and forgo exclusive titles in the Epic Store in the future.
However, so far, Steam has not yielded, but has even expanded further. Alongside new records in user numbers, the Game of the Year 2020 has been a success on Steam. This was Red Dead Redemption 2, a title that Epic had previously had exclusively in its store for many months.
Nonetheless, Epic continues to adhere to its strategy of exclusive titles. It has been announced that over 100 exclusives are planned for the next 2 years: Epic promises more than 100 exclusive titles for the store – these are already known.
