Apple removed Fortnite from the App Store after Epic Games breached its payment obligation. According to Epic Games, the Cupertino company has taken a “monopolistic” move, so he himself is threatening legal action.

In just a few hours a war has already broken out. Epic Games, in an ingenious attempt to avoid paying commissions for the sales of Fortnite microtransactions, designed an external payment option so that the user can buy the virtual currency directly from Epic, without having to go through the Apple and Google stores. The apple company has acted quickly, removing Fortnite from the App Store and preventing it from being downloaded.

From Apple they have spoken by sending a statement to The Verge portal, where they point out the following:

Epic enabled a feature in their app that was not reviewed or approved by Apple. That’s why Fortnite has been removed from the App Store

“Epic Games has taken the unfortunate step of violating App Store guidelines that apply equally to all developers and are designed to keep the store safe for our users. As a result, their Fortnite app has been removed from the store. Epic enabled a feature in their app that was not reviewed or approved by Apple, and they did so with the express intent of violating the App Store guidelines regarding in- app payments that apply to all developers selling goods or digital services”.

Epic has benefited from the App Store ecosystem and freely accepted its terms

The statement continues to assure that “Epic has had applications in the App Store for a decade and has benefited from our ecosystem after having freely accepted the terms and conditions of the service.” At the same time, they assure that “the fact that their commercial interests lead them to press for something like this does not change that these guidelines provide a level playing field for all developers.”

Finally, the note opens space for reconciliation: “We will do everything possible to work with Epic to resolve these violations so that Fortnite can return to the App Store. ” But you have to remember that a week ago, Tim Sweeney, CEO of Epic Games, said that Apple had gone crazy with its revenue-sharing policies.

Epic Games has filed legal papers in response to Apple, read more here: https://t.co/c4sgvxQUvb

— Fortnite (@FortniteGame) August 13, 2020

The harsh response from Epic Games

However, it seems that such a truce will take time to come. A few minutes after this movement became known by the company of the bitten apple, the parents of Unreal Tournament have announced legal actions against Apple for what they consider monopolistic practices, they have done so by sharing an extensive document where the company founded by Tim Sweeney argues the case.

“Apple imposes restrictions without reason and illegally maintains a total monopoly in the market for processing payments integrated into applications for iOS,” denounces Epic Games, ensuring that the Cupertino technology giant “coerces” all developers who use its App Store, “the only means of software distribution to users on iOS”, to use its platform. “Apple goes so far as to muzzle application developers, preventing them from even mentioning to users the option to buy the same content outside of the application,” they add.

So a court battle looms that could change everything in the market for mobile software distribution.

Source: 3DJuegos

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