The picture might suggest Epic has been fighting with Apple as well as Google but Google has slowly gotten away from the fight by resolving it with Epic, but its the fight between Apple and Epic that has been making all the headlines.
Fights between tech giants are very common, so much so that there’s always some kind of lawsuit going on between Samsung and Apple, but rarely they make it to the headlines between but the one with epic and Apple has been one of the weirdest one of all time with both of companies making all kind of accusations at each other.
If you don't know what's going on, on August 13th Epic games added an additional way for users to make in app purchases that sidelined Apple's and Google's in app purchase mechanism, that allowed epic to negate 30% cuts to Apple and Google, so it could offer V-bucks at 20% discount, it did not go well with Apple and Google and they immediately removed fortnite app from both the stores.
Epic wasn't happy about it and immediately filed a 62 page lawsuit against both the companies, immediate response makes you think it was an intentional decision by Epic to negate the in app purchase mechanism.
If you want to have a look at the lawsuit file you can check it out here.
That started the ugly fight between the two companies, since then both the companies taking all kinds of dig at each other, especially Epic which has been bashing Apple, accusing them of having a monopoly and using it to give more preferences to its products in the App Store all over social media and if you thought fight would ease out as days passed, you are completely wrong, the fights have been getting uglier as the days have passed.
Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney has been very active about this issue, calling App Store an absolute monopoly, he also said the 30% cuts are extremely high, saying "in few cases Apple and Google make more money through cuts than the developers who made the product itself".
Source: Tim Sweeney
But the thing is, Epic is definitely not doing any of this just to make a few extra money, it is definitely the motive but they also want to help developers make more money. Compared to steam, Apple, Google which take 30% cut from the developers for in app purchases, epic games store only takes 12%, you might think, 30% cuts leaves 70%, how will that be less for the developers than Apple and Google, you are right in thinking that but when we take into account tax, licensing fee and other infrastructure costs, in some cases developers might earn way less which is worrying.
In contrast Apple also isn't all wrong in expecting 30% fee, because App Store has been successful in becoming a reliable place for developers to publish their apps and for public to use it without the fear of getting malware to their devices and also maintaining privacy, it has provided a huge platform for developers which they never had before, this money that Apple also incentivises them to provide software updates to their iPhones for 5-6 years because Apple not only makes money by selling its iPhones, it also makes while you are using it and making purchases on its App Store.
Even if Apple allows others to have their own app stores, mass public will keep using App Store, just because its more reliable and all there other reasons its great.
I seriously hope that Apple reduces its cuts a bit lower so that it helps the developers and also makes sure there will not be a need for more and more apps stores coming into Apple because none of the others will be as safe and reliable as App Store and it might affect millions of users if its misused.
Just to give an idea how much money Apple makes through App Store, it was estimated in 2019 alone, it made $18.3 Billion, which was 40% of their revenue through services!!!!
Apple is a company that always tries to pretend that no other company exists other than them in their official events or when they post something on social media, that's how they have always portray themselves, they always compare their new iPhones to older previous generation ones rather the latest and greatest android flagships but this time when Epic filed a lawsuit for removal of Fortnite form App Store Apple went all out counter Epic Games.
As heat between kept developing Apple even terminated the developer account of Epic Games that was responsible for fortnite, if you thought Apple would stop there, they didn't, they went on remove the ability to login to epic games using Apple ID.
Apple has also filed a lawsuit against Epic for breach of contract.
Apple was not the only one to attack, Epic games has been taking dig at Apple since day one by tweeting all kinds of stuff against Apple, it has also got allies with 12 other companies including Spotify and Tile supporting Epic's case and they call it "Coalition for App fairness" with their goal being to make sure all the things mentioned by Epic games in their lawsuit be fulfilled. They also went all the way to parodying the iconic 1984 ad in which Apple tried to portray IBM as evil "big brother", in epic games' video Apple is the dominant power. They call the video "Nineteen Eighty-Fortnite", they have also made a blog post encouraging the public to use #FreeFortnite to show support towards them in social media.
Things did not end there either, Epic games also announced #FreeFortnite tournament, and as part of price, they announced a whole bunch such as Alienware laptops, Samsung Galaxy Tab S7 tablets, OnePlus 8 phones, and Xbox One X and Nintendo Switch gaming systems.
US judge granted temporary restraining order was filed so that prevented Apple form blocking Epic Games' access to development tools and told Epic Games to comply with App Store guidelines till court issues in September.
Apple replied if Epic complies with that it would allow fortnite to come back to App Store, but it didn't really happen and Epic confirmed next season of fortnite would not come to any Apple device due to its legal battle with the company.
After all the suing and countersuing if you thought the issue has finally been resolved because its already October, it hasn't and the Judge has suggested for a jury trial of the case in July of 2021.
It doesn't end here either, Apple and Epic finally agreed on something which was that they didn't want a jury trial, instead they wanted a bench trial.
This fight between Apple and Epic has got a lot of media coverage, looking at all the things that the companies have been doing to get the upper hand and win the case, everyone has been telling the same thing which is:
But it'll be interesting to see what happens at the end, but this has been one of the ugliest fights between tech companies.
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