Why Epic isn’t an innocent victim in the Fortnite battle with Apple, and why it deserves a loss today

[Chris Smith]

• The first round in the Epic Games vs. Apple lawsuit over Fortnite will take place on Monday.
• It should be a win for Apple in what may turn out to be a long legal battle between the two companies.
• Epic has created this problem all on its own, and it’s now looking for the court to prevent Apple from enforcing App Store rules, when it could fix the problem by itself, by fixing the Fortnite app according to App Store rules.
• Epic is risking losing access to its Apple developer accounts and tools, which could lead to the complete removal of Fortnite, and affect other developers working licensing the Unreal tools.

Before I tell you why Epic should lose in this first phase of what might turn out to be a long fight with Apple, let’s just put a pin in Apple’s 30% cut the company takes from all the transactions happening in its apps. Epic is trying to make it sound like it’s all about that in its fight against Apple, but that’s only scratching the surface.

To recap, Epic a few days ago decided to push an update to its iOS and Android Fortnite apps that would offer buyers an extra means of payment for digital goods, Epic’s. Apple promptly banned Fortnite, and as soon as that happened, Epic sued Apple and released a mock commercial to rally gaming opinion in its favor in the ensuing fight. Google banned Fortnite as well, and Epic sued them either. These moves were calculated and prepared well ahead of Epic’s Fortnite update that got the app banned. In the days that followed, we learned that Apple didn’t just ban Fortnite from the App Store, it also gave Epic a fortnight to remove the secondary payment option in the app or risk having its entire developer account banned. Epic quickly followed with a temporary restraining order (TRO) motion asking the court to prevent Apple from going through with its plan to remove Epic’s access to developer tools and accounts in response to its breach of the App Store rules. Apple responded to that with its motion, showing the back and forth exchanges between Apple and Epic in the days preceding the Fortnite update and it the days that followed. Over the weekend, Epic responded to Apple, with Microsoft filing a declaration of support in favor of Epic. Phew!

This brings us to Monday when the motion hearing will take place. And that’s where Epic should be handed its first defeat against Apple, and where it will be forced to announce that the Fortnite iPhone app will be restored to the previous state, the one where in-app purchases (IAP) are only possible via Apple’s payment system.

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Why Epic isn’t an innocent victim in the Fortnite battle with Apple, and why it deserves a loss today originally appeared on BGR.com on Mon, 24 Aug 2020 at 06:50:39 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Via BRG - Boy Genius Report