In the latest court filing from Epic Games against Apple Inc., the company stated that the iPhone maker has no right to bear the fruits of Epic’s hard work and labour. The latest update on the on-going battle between the two big companies!
This year in August, Epic Games introduced a direct in-app purchase payment option in their widely popular game, Fortnite to avoid the 30% cut that Apple takes on every transaction between the game player that purchases from within the app and Epic Games Inc.
In response to this over smartness, Apple immediately removed Fortnite from its App Store alleging the Epic Games has violated the policy of the company. To this, Epic Games slapped Apple Inc. with a lawsuit and also revealed that Apple threatened the gaming company to remove their developer’s account which is used to support Epic’s Unreal Engine Platform that is used by hundreds of game makers to develop their game. Termination of Epic’s developer account would result in the company not making any future games for iOS and MacOS platforms.
To this feud between the two companies, US District Judge named Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers upheld an injunction which allowed Apple not to restore Fortnite on their App Store, but anther injunction prevented Apple to harm Epic Games’ Unreal Engine platform as it would impact many other game developers using Unreal Engine.
Following the lawsuit, Apple claimed that it would seek damages from the gaming company for breaching App Store policies and posing an unjust and tortious interference between Apple’s relationships with its customers.
According to sources, Apple’s conduct throughout the lawsuit and till now has been reasonable and justified. The iPhone maker claims that its actions were taken in good faith with advanced business interests and commitments. This decision had an effect of encouraging healthy competition between developers which was good for business. The issued statement read that Epic games’ staggering disregard for company policies and their misconduct has caused significant harm to the company’s business and reputation for which they seek compensation.
Epic Games’ counter-filing says that Epic’s action to introduce a direct payment system was a far cry from tortious (as Apple quoted). The company claimed that they have not stolen anything that belonged to Apple. They cannot steal sale proceeds from their team’s own creative efforts and they certainly did not interfere with any prospective advantage that Apple was seeking to gain from Fortnite’s separate user base.
The Jury commented that it is very important to learn what people think about the issue. Do these security concerns affect people in any way? These questions are yet to be addressed and the suggested trial frame is set in 2021.
