Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney is speaking out about the recent ruling in his company’s lawsuit against Apple. He announced that Fortnite would not appear on any of Apple’s ecosystems until this judgment becomes final, including MAC and iOS.
According to Tim Sweeney’s latest tweet:
Apple lied. Apple spent a year telling the world, the court, and the press they’d “welcome Epic’s return to the App Store if they agree to play by the same rules as everyone else”. Epic agreed, and now Apple has reneged in another abuse of its monopoly power over a billion users.
Sweeney promised that Epic Games would “adhere to Apple’s guidelines” to get its developer account back. Though Epic Games has appealed the court’s ruling in this Apple case, Sweeney promised they would “adhere to all guidelines” if their developer account was restored.
On September 10th, 2017, Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers of the U.S District Court for Northern California issued a permanent injunction that required Apple to allow App Store developers access and the ability to push their users around third-party payment systems like PayPal or Google Wallet to make payments more convenient. This was considered a successful part of the lawsuit, allowing developers to circumvent the App Store’s payment terms without paying the extra 30% to Apple. Nonetheless, the case still finished in favor of Apple, with Apple not having an “illegal monopoly on mobile gaming transactions.”
The ruling comes after 15 years where consumers could use iPhones solely through iTunes purchases without any additional fees tacked onto each transaction. They were signed in with an Apple ID account which is still possible but not supported by iOS 9 anymore. For that reason, Epic Games now owns Apple a solid portion of 30% of the $12.1 million, including the Epic Games’ direct payment circumvention.
