Epic Games has taken its fight against Apple to the European Union after an unfavourable decision in a US court. The two companies have been in dispute over Apple’s 30 percent fee for in-app purchases, which Epic does not want to pay. Due to this, Fortnite got booted from the App Store.
The US Court said that Apple can continue to ban the popular battle royale game, but has to allow distribution of Unreal Engine and not ban Epic’s developer account. As Unreal Engine is used by multiple other games as a base. And the Epic account develops and features a lot of other Epic properties that do not infringe on the App Store Rules.
The company has also accused Apple of barring rivals from launching their own gaming subscription service, due to its own Apple Arcade service.
Apple in a reply states that all of its rules apply equally to all developers and that Epic had violated these by implementing its own payments gateway and not using the one Apple provides.
A US judge stated that it was “deceptive and clandestine, [the way] Epic enabled a feature in its app, which was not reviewed or approved by Apple, and they did so with the express intent of violating the App Store guidelines that apply equally to every developer and protect customers.”
Apple in a statement to Reuters stated that Epic’s reckless behaviour made pawns of customers, and we look forward to making this clear to the European Commission.
Epic has complained to the UK Competition Appeal Tribunal and to the Australian watchdog at the same time as EU, to help it attain damages from Apple.
Currently, Fortnite is not available on the iPhone, iPad, and Macs.
