Fortnite maker Epic Games is celebrating an enormous US court decision that forces Apple to allow alternative payment options on iPhone.
This is the key issue that began the five-year feud between Apple and Epic Games – when the Fortnite maker deliberately added a cheaper payment option to its battle royale that circumvented Apple’s own method, from which it then takes a 30 percent cut.
The case has rumbled on since, but has rarely felt quite as dramatic as in the 80-page verdict slapped down on Apple last night by the US District Court of Northern California, which found the iPhone maker “in wilful violation” of the court’s previous injuction designed to prohibit the company’s “anticompetitive conduct and anticompetitive pricing”.
That particular injuction saw Apple being told it had to allow purchases for apps from outside websites, to which Apple agreed but then decided to levy a 27 percent fee when doing so – effectively restoring its regular app store cut.
In fiery terms, the US court has now said this move “strains credulity” and branded it an “obvious cover-up” designed to allow Apple to continue with “anticompetitive conduct solely to maintain its revenue stream”.
The damning verdict echoes many of the arguments previously made by Epic Games boss Tim Sweeney, who has campaigned against Apple’s fresh barriers to outside payments.
“Apple’s response,” the court verdict reads, was to “impose new barriers and new requirements to increase friction and increase breakage rates with full page ‘scare’ screens, static URLs, and generic statements.
“Apple’s goal,” the verdict continues, “was to dissuade customer usage of alternative purchase opportunities and maintain its anticompetitive revenue stream. In the end, Apple sought to maintain a revenue stream worth billions in direct defiance of this Court’s Injunction.”
More dramatic still, the court states that Apple documentation reveals the company “knew what it was doing and at every turn chose the most anticompetitive option”, and that “to hide the truth, vice-president of finance Alex Roman outright lied under oath”.
Sweeney, who previously stated that Epic Games had lost around $1bn in missed revenue over the run of the case, took to social media last night to celebrate the decision – and state that Fortnite would return to the US iPhone App Store next week.
“NO FEES on web transactions,” Sweeney wrote. “Game over for the Apple Tax. Apple’s 15-30 percent junk fees are now just as dead here in the United States of America as they are in Europe under the Digital Markets Act. Unlawful here, unlawful there.
“We will return Fortnite to the US iOS App Store next week.
“Epic puts forth a peace proposal: If Apple extends the court’s friction-free, Apple-tax-free framework worldwide, we’ll return Fortnite to the App Store worldwide and drop current and future litigation on the topic.”
Eurogamer has contacted Apple for comment, and asked whether it will be considering Sweeney’s offer.
