Epic, the studio responsible for the Fortnite game, introduced a payment system to bypass the 30% commission, something that is not allowed in the App Store.
This has been proven that the Epic Games studio maneuver was previously planned, as after seeing Apple remove its game, it responded with the announcement of a lawsuit – it published an extensive document explaining the conflict – and started a network campaign known as #FreeFornite, in which they called for the “release” of the game.
The abundant artwork, including a parody of one of the block’s best-known commercials, made it clear that this is an orchestrated campaign. It is not the first time that they collide for this reason. Tim Sweeney launched a digital video game store in 2018 for Mac and Windows, in which the commission is 12%. He tried to take it to mobile but assured that it was impossible. That is why he accused the apple of having invented a ‘software’ monopoly. He argued that if each developer could manage payments, many of the services and ‘apps’ would “go down in price.”
This conflict erupts the same week Russia announced an investigation against the App Store for monopolistic practices. An action that joins those already started in the US and Brussels. Tim Cook had to testify several weeks ago with the CEOs of Amazon, Google and Facebook in the US Congress to answer about the operation of his application store and the aforementioned commission, among other things. Three-quarters of the same happen in Brussels since, after a complaint in 2019 from Spotify, the community authorities have also decided to investigate Apple for this reason.