Following Apple's decision to pull Fortnite from its Apple Store, Epic Games announced that it will take legal action. Epic Games shared the news via the official Fortnite Twitter account:

Epic Games has filed legal papers in response to Apple, read more here: https://t.co/c4sgvxQUvb

— Fortnite (@FortniteGame) August 13, 2020

​

“Epic brings this suit to end Apple’s unfair and anti-competitive actions that Apple undertakes to unlawfully maintain its monopoly in two distinct, multibillion dollar markets: (i) the iOS App Distribution Market, and (ii) the iOS In-App Payment Processing Market(each as defined below),” the lawsuit reads. “Epic is not seeking monetary compensation from this Court for the injuries it has suffered. Nor is Epic seeking favorable treatment for itself, a single company. Instead, Epic is seeking injunctive relief to allow fair competition in these two key markets that directly affect hundreds of millions of consumers and tens of thousands, if not more, of third-party app developers.”

You can read the complaint in its entirety in the source link below.

SOURCE

UPDATE:

In response to Fortnite being taken down from the Google Play Store as well, Epic Games filed a lawsuit against against Google for antitrust violation.

SOURCE

 

[VartioArtel]

ya im not buying that. i responded cause my bell had a notification. you just want to instigate for whatever reason. have a nice day

Wonderful choice and excuse. Couldn't suggest better for your particular mental acumen!

 

[HeartfeltDesu]

I believe Epic is entitled to all the money they get from the games they make, but if they don't want to give Apple a 30% cut they shouldn't agree to the Apple ToS that demands that 30% cut. I barely had any sympathy for Epic when they willfully broke a ToS they agreed and then acted surprised when they got in trouble for it, but after realizing that they had this whole trap filled with lawyers and bad PR set for Apple and Apple walking right it... whew.

I pretty much lost any genuine interest in the situation when they had the gall to use the lazy go-to overused 1984 metaphor. 1984 is invoked literally whenever a politically ignorant person is pissed off about anything ever, and I can't take any allusions to it seriously anymore. George Orwell would be rolling over in his grave.

 

[VartioArtel]

I pretty much lost any genuine interest in the situation when they had the gall to use the lazy go-to overused 1984 metaphor. 1984 is invoked literally whenever a politically ignorant person is pissed off about anything ever, and I can't take any allusions to it seriously anymore. George Orwell would be rolling over in his grave.

At this point, more often than not, 1984 is used to scared people about fascists by the group closer to true Fascists. Because how better to scare people into joining you than the cultural terror that your opponents are the true fascists? Stupid 2.5D chess move sadly works because of how easily people believe things nowadays...

 

[KingVamp]

That video is either going to hurt them or not matter in the long run. If they had just sued without breaking the TOS, they would probably have had a better chance.

apple and google are now dealing with ubisoft

I took a glance at this. That's pretty funny.

 

[Bladexdsl]

i'll laugh my guts out if nintendo and microsoft decide to pull FADnite too. probably won't happen but i can dream

 

[Arras]

i'll laugh my guts out if nintendo and microsoft decide to pull FADnite too. probably won't happen but i can dream

If they add their own payment system to the console version and it's against their TOS (which it might be, since I think all ingame purchases go through the console shop normally), the exact same thing will probably happen there, lawsuit included. Even if not, if Epic wins the monopoly case against Apple, it would be pretty easy to make the same argument against consoles, since they use a similar walled garden system where the console owner has the only viable store, is the final authority on what is and isn't allowed on there and takes a cut of all sales.

 

[RedBlueGreen]

This should be interesting, it's not David vs goliath, it's goliath vs goliath. Both have very deep pockets and can litigate this with the most expensive lawyers money can buy.

I hope epic win as it would set a precedent and ultimately help the smallest developers get a bigger piece of the pie

Doesn't Apple also charge a fee to developers to host their apps? I know it used to be like that, and Google just required something like a $25 one time payment for a developer account. This was like 5 years ago so it might've changed.

 

[HideoKojima]

Wish I can fast forward this

 

[subcon959]

I couldn't give a toss about your TOS.

 

[Reijendal]

Epic Fail

 

[RedBlueGreen]

Epic has enough to pay the 30% cut. After all they charge $5-10 worth of V-bucks for individual skins. Fortnite has cross platform accounts anyway, so they can just make V-bucks cheaper on computer to incentivize people to buy them their. Or just have a site for Fortnite where you can buy V-bucks that you have to go to without having it in the app, and just don't let people buy V-bucks through the mobile versions of Fortnite.

But I do want this to set a precedent both for smaller devs to not have to pay almost a third of the revenue from the app to Apple, though I think other store fronts charge similar amounts, and for the TOS of a service not to be treated like it's absolute.

I do have to defend Apple in this specific instance. They did the right thing by just pulling the app and not suing, though now there will probably be a counter suit.

I predict not only will Epic sue over being removed from the app store but also "lost revenue" because people can't download the game anymore make in app purchases if the app isn't on iOS anymore, the Apple counters with a defamation claim, which will be a little harder to make stick because they're not outright calling them fascists, and suing for the money that they're missing out on by Epic implementing a direct payment option to get around paying Apple a cut. I don't see either thing working out for Apple (because defamation would be harder to make stick here, but also trying to get their cut after the direct payment option is going to be harder since they've removed Fortnite from the store which arguably ends Epic's agreement with them), but realistically I don't see Epic winning because they did knowingly violate the TOS.

The result I would like to see is Epic having to pay some of the money from the in app purchases to Apple, something like 15%, because that will lead to either the TOS changing to give them a smaller cut for everything, or a precedent where the smaller developers can argue they should only have to pay 15%.

I guess contrary to my initial opinion, I want Apple to win but be put into a more compromising position where developers have to pay them less of a cut.

If this were a smaller game that didn't charge a crap ton for cosmetics with an already expensive in game currency I would be rooting for them completely. But Epic can absolutely afford to pay Apple a cut (30% is still high though), and this was clearly planned from the start. I'm sure Epic and Tencent are involved in some sort of sketchy bookkeeping as well.

 

[Reiten]

I had this line of thought going through my head, about the whole situation, and figured sharing it.
Epic, faking benevolence, called out Steam on the cut they take from the sales. Steam ignored them, and Epic didn't have any way to do anything. And the prices in Epics store are the same as Steam, so the consumers don't see anything from the lesser cut.
Now Epic fabricated a "casus belli" as an excuses to call out Apple and Google in a manner that they can't ignore.

 

[Spring_Spring]

#FreeFortnite, I think you mean #20%OffFortnite

 

[Danethos86]

Hate apple yet hate epic as much. Hope both loose and both companies end up at loss money.

 

[nxwing]

Not sure if any of you know this but Apple says that they enforce a 30% fee on IAP on pretty much every app. Every app from every developer. Tim Cook told this in the hearing before the House antitrust committee. Except they don't. They tried waiving that 30% to a 15% for Amazon Prime Video back in 2016. So basically, not all developers are treated equally by Apple.

Sure, Epic is still shit for breaking the TOS but Apple is just as shitty for even attempting to give special treatment to some companies all while saying they treat all developers equally.

 

[Shape]

I agree 30% is excessive, but again, it's sadly not illegal. That one word is what matters here.

Illegal matters less in civil court, where this is happening. Civil court tends to revolve more around 'is the contract legal', 'is the contract fair?' And 'is it impossible for one of the contract participants to fulfill the obligations of the contract?".

Which Epic is probably going to claim the 30% will kill a little guy. But then again, I don't have ANY friends with iOS products anymore, and the only mac guy i know isnt happy about mac anymore.[/QUOTE]

 

[VartioArtel]

Illegal matters less in civil court, where this is happening. Civil court tends to revolve more around 'is the contract legal', 'is the contract fair?' And 'is it impossible for one of the contract participants to fulfill the obligations of the contract?".

Which Epic is probably going to claim the 30% will kill a little guy. But then again, I don't have ANY friends with iOS products anymore, and the only mac guy i know isnt happy about mac anymore.

[/QUOTE]

The issue again is 30% is the industry standard. "Small guys" like Toby (Undertale) have gotten by that, for example (and yes, consoles do run the 30% standard). Other small companies have too. The argument's being spoken from a BIG company at that which makes that argument self defeating too. If an actual small company made that argument maybe it would hold weight, but it would be like Microsoft complaining that 30% is 'too high' in court, for relative thoughts.

 

[KingVamp]

Funnily enough, seems like Microsoft is defending Epic.