The legal battle between Apple and Epic Games continues. Recently, the apple company has decided to fight back, and in a new report presented to the court in charge, it has assured that Epic’s lawsuit is nothing more than a “campaign to revitalize interest in Fortnite .”
This pitched war between the two companies began when Epic Games included an alternative payment method in Fortnite for iPhone and Mac, violating Apple’s App Store rules prohibiting these kinds of alternatives. Apple (like Google, since Epic did the same on Android) decided to delete Fortnite from the App Store, and days later, they also deleted Epic’s developer account, so all their games disappeared from the app store.
But on the same day that Apple took down Fortnite, Epic sued them and published a video against Apple criticizing its monopolizing practices, according to the company. Since then, both have lived a legal battle, and in its latest episode, Apple has decided to fight back with strong statements:
“Epic started a fire and poured gasoline on it. Now it asks this court to apply emergency assistance to put out the fire, even though Epic could do it by merely honoring the terms of the contract they have maintained in a profitable relationship with Apple for years.
This demand, and the media headlines it has generated, appear to be part of a marketing campaign designed to revitalize interest in Fortnite. “
And is that according to Apple, interest in Fortnite would have fallen “by 70% between October 2019 and July 2020”, so that Epic would be taking this measure as part of a sabotage campaign. “[Epic] He is not a martyr,” says the Cupertino document.
One of the most significant risks in the lawsuit is that Apple blocks the Unreal Engine development engine, created by Epic Games, in its App Store, potentially affecting thousands of developers who use it in their games and applications. So far, the court has kept Unreal Engine from being affected. However, Apple still says, “the only reason this trade dispute threatens the Unreal Engine developers (and Fortnite players ) is that Epic is sacrificing for their commercial interests.”
The next court date for attorneys for Epic and Apple will be on September 28. This war is not over yet.
