Things are really heating up for the legal battle between Apple and Epic Games. The development studio behind the world’s popular video game title, Fortnite, has recently been fighting with Apple and Google. If you haven’t heard, this battle all took place over a new feature presented to players in Fortnite which would bypass the fees of in-game purchases that would have to be parted between Epic along with Apple or Google.
This means of direct in-game payment to Epic Games for Fortnite microtransactions would ensure that none of the profits made from Epic would have been split. As a result, Google and Apple were quick to remove the application from their digital marketplaces. This prompted Epic Games to fire out legal action against both companies. In fact, there was even another jab taken to Apple with a classic commercial parody that instead focuses on Fortnite characters, you can find that video commercial embedded above.
With gamers no longer having access to download the game on their Android or iOS devices, this is a hit for Epic Games, but that’s just the start of what Apple has planned. To get the profits back from content produced from Epic Games, Apple is going a step further and preventing Epic to use development tools for both iOS along with Mac platforms. This is a big hit for Epic Games and even other developers.
Since the support will be lost, Epic’s Unreal Engine will no longer be able to release on the Apple iOS or Mac marketplaces, thus prompting developers to use an alternative engine. This has resulted in Epic going into another legal battle over Apple damaging Epic’s business that is separate from the Fortnite incident. Right now it’s a tough battle for both parties. Epic could lose quite a bit of future profit due to this move, but Apple may be hurting if Epic wins this Fortnite in-app purchases legal action which means other companies could potentially be free to offer in-app microtransactions without having to split the profits with the likes of Apple or Google.
