Clash of the Titans

Video games are something near and dear to my heart, the relationships formed between iconic characters through their stories and struggles is always something that has stuck with me. I’m not alone, the gaming industry is big and with that comes company behemoths interested in one thing the financial side of entertainment.

Apple and Epic Games have been locked into a tense legal battle, one that has been going on for quite a while. You know who Apple is but you may not know who Epic Games is. Epic Games is a software developer and publisher that has released some pretty big titles. If you knew them for something it would be Fortnite. 

Apple’s app policies have had Epic Games frustrated for a while. Until recently Epic has been compliant. Even if you don’t care about the video game industry, the conflict is much bigger and one that will have long term effects for everyone who uses Apple, regardless of who wins.

So what happened? How did this start? Apple’s app store policies come as an industry standard for the protection of the user. Anyone who has an app on the apple app store must comply with these rules.  Every time a game is sold on the app store, apple gets a 30% cut; however, this only applies for one year for subscription services after which the cut drops to 15%. Again, this is a standard that companies like Google’s Playstore, Steam, Xbox Live, Playstation Network, and Nintendo e-store enforce… Except for the Epic Game’s store. 

Epic only demands a 12% cut from all sales. This is not in the interest of the user, however; instead, Epic games uses this to undercut Steam (which is another gaming launcher for the pc) who they have been trying to take on for years. 

Apple has another policy, and this is the one that ruffles Epic’s feathers. Any in-app purchases or micro-transactions must go through Apple, this protects users from being scammed by shady apps trying to get credit card information. Because it goes through apple, they take a cut, and then give the rest to the app developer which means Apple is still the only one with that sensitive information. This, combined with a 30% cut often raises prices on in-app purchases to account for the loss of profit.

August 13th Epic Games offered two options for in-app purchases, you can pay $9.99 through apple OR you could pay $7.99 to Epic directly. Because the second option bypassed Apple’s cut it was cheaper. It was a very direct breach of terms and services. In response, apple removed Fortnite from the app store. Immediately Epic retaliated with a detailed lawsuit and a video parodying apple’s 1984 commercial. It’s safe to say that Epic had this planned from the start.

Within hours, Epic had long legal documents with a bevy of lawsuits and a video trying to get their fan base to respond. This second part was a failure do to the majority of Fortnite’s fanbase being younger than 18 and missing not only the reference but also not knowing what was going on.

In one of the legal documents that apple produced, the company said that Epic asked for permission to have direct in-app purchases and that the same option is available for all third parties. Of course, Apple said no. 

It’s not just epic that has a problem with apple policies, Netflix, Spotify, and even our web host WordPress have stated complaints against apple for their Terms and Conditions. And why is Epic only going after mobile app stores like apple and google? Epic claims that this isn’t just about gaming but for 3rd party creators everywhere. This lawsuit will change all if not most of the internal workings of payment on your phones, prices could go down but the risk of third party companies having access to your payment info will go up.

It’s also worth noting that investigations in the EU and the US have already begun because of complaints from Spotify which makes it seem that Epic didn’t set the ball rolling but instead is pushing it along. It still remains to be seen where this will go and just how far it will impact the apps we use daily but you can be sure that there will be a big change by the time the dust settles.

Im not defending Apple here, they are a leviathan of a company and have more money then they know what to do with, but Epic isn’t small either. Epic sees this as a way to make more money for themselves. Apple has a monopoly and this is the bases of the lawsuit but thats, not the goal for epic, this is there bid for becoming more powerful as a company.