Apple Says Epic Games ‘Wants Us to Be Android, But We Don’t Want to Be’

The highly-anticipated Epic Games vs. Apple trial kicked off today in a federal court in Oakland, California, with legal representatives for both companies delivering opening remarks prior to District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers.
Lawyers for Epic Games attempted to paint the App Store as anti-competitive and monopolistic, noting that developers are required to use Apples in-app purchase system, and therefore pay Apple a 30% commission on sales. (The rate drops to 15% for memberships after the first year and for qualifying developers who register for Apples brand-new Small Business Program and earn less than $1 million per fiscal year in net revenue.).
Legendary Games described the App Store as a “walled garden” and presented emails from current and previous Apple executives like Steve Jobs, Phil Schiller, Craig Federighi, Eddy Cue, and Scott Forstall in an attempt to prove this claim.
Legendary Games desires Apple to be required to enable third-party app stores on iOS and to let designers provide direct payment systems, but Apple argued that a single, highly-curated App Store is necessary to secure the security, personal privacy, reliability, and quality that clients have actually pertained to get out of the company.
” Epic wants us to be Android, however we do not desire to be,” said Apple attorney Karen Dunn, describing the capability to sideload apps beyond the Google Play store on Android gadgets. “Our consumers do not desire that either,” she included.
Epic Games is the creator of popular battle royale video game Fortnite, which Apple removed from the App Store in August 2020, quickly after Epic Games slyly presented a direct payment option in the app, in defiance of the App Store guidelines. Legendary Games then filed an orchestrated lawsuit against Apple, implicating the business of anti-competitive habits.
At the time, Apple said Epic Games “took the unfortunate step of breaching the App Store guidelines that are used equally to every designer and designed to keep the shop safe for our users,” adding that it would “strive to deal with Epic to deal with these offenses so they can return Fortnite to the App Store.” Legendary Games has actually refused to comply, however, and Fortnite remains unavailable on the App Store.
Impressive Games CEO Tim Sweeney testified at the trial today, saying that by presenting the direct payment alternative, he wanted consumers to see that Apple exercises “total control” over iOS and software application available on the platform.
The trial is anticipated to continue for an overall of 3 weeks, with Apples CEO Tim Cook and other executives anticipated to affirm.