Well, I’m sure we all remember the rapidly escalating drama between Apple and Epic Games from last week. In short, Epic implemented an alternate payment method into Fortnite on iOS allowing users to purchase the in-game currency V-Bucks directly through Epic at a 20% discount. This was in response to a long-held belief from Epic Games and specifically CEO Tim Sweeney that digital storefronts like the App Store take far too large of a cut of the profits (30%) and that their strict guidelines create a monopolistic position. The alternate payment method in Fortnite is a direct violation of App Store guidelines, which Epic was very aware of, and Apple within hours pulled the game from the App Store. Almost immediately Epic filed legal papers against Apple for doing that, and then shortly after debuted a video called “Nineteen-Eighty Fortnite", a parody of Apple’s iconic “1984" Super Bowl ad, inside of Fortnite itself. Epic rolled out the same update to Fortnite on Google Play, and Google followed suit later in the day by also pulling the game from their store. Since then other major tech companies like Facebook and Spotify have show support for Epic in this fight.
Now Apple is trying to throw its knockout punch by threatening to terminate all of Epic’s developer agreements and tools if they don’t provide a compliant copy of Fortnite without the alternate pay method by August 28th. To be clear, this goes well beyond Fortnite....