In the recent evolution of Apple Epic Games litigation, Epic Games said it had filed a request for a court to order Apple to bring Fortnite back to the App Store and restore its developer account.
According to Neowin, Fortnite has been removed from Apple’s App Store because Epic Games introduced direct payments into the company’s in-game currency instead of relying on Apple’s (and Google’s) payment systems, which profit must be divided. This is said to have violated the App Store policy.
As a result, Apple has terminated the Epic developer account, while also removing the company’s other games from the App Store. Even so, Apple could not remove the Unreal Engine in its entirety by a court order.
Epic is now trying to regain access it lost in the ongoing antitrust lawsuit against Apple. In the statement, Epic said: “Today we ask the court to stop Apple retaliation against Epic for daring to challenge Apple’s misconduct while our antitrust lawsuit goes. Apple is a monopolist and standing up against them is a necessary step to free consumers and developers from the illegal restrictions it has imposed on app distribution and treatment. payment in-app payments on iOS. For so long, developers have not spoken out for fear of Apple retaliation. Recent corporate actions suggest that if you challenge Apple’s monopoly, Apple will seek to destroy your business. We are committed to speaking up and ensuring lower costs, bringing competitiveness to everyone ”.
In a letter to Apple, Epic CEO Tim Sweeney said: “If one day Apple chooses to go back to its roots, building open platforms, in which consumers have the freedom to install software from sources they choose and developers can reach consumers and businesses directly without middlemen, Epic will once again be an ardent advocate for Apple. Now that Epic is in substantial disagreement with Apple’s policies and practices, we will continue to pursue this as we did before to address other injustices in our industry. “.
The legal battle between Epic and Apple is getting a lot of attention from different teams, including independent developers based on Epic’s development tools, services looking to launch apps. The cloud game works on iOS, and other developers also want flexibility in handling transactions that lose 30% of revenue. Even so, it’s hard to believe this will happen soon.
