Apple and Google have removed the popular battle royale game Fortnite from the App Store and Google Play Store. Epic Games has since sued Apple and Google.
Fortnite received an update on iOS and Android yesterday that allows players to bypass the regular way of making in-app purchases. By using ‘Epic Direct Payment’ all earnings go directly to Epic, and no amount is donated to Apple and Google. People who choose Epic Direct Payment therefore receive a twenty percent discount on their V-Bucks.
Yesterday, Apple and later Google decided to remove Fortnite from their digital stores. After all, it is mandatory for companies to transfer thirty percent of their sales to them when they offer their game through the App Store or Google Play Store, and Epic did not do this with this new payment method.
Epic has since sued Apple for “unfair and anti-competitive actions that allow Apple to maintain its monopoly in two billion-dollar industries,” namely, “the App Store and the iOS In-App Payment Processing Market.” Epic states that it is not suing Apple to make money, but to help thousands of other publishers and developers and to break the grip that Apple has on the mobile market. In the meantime, the company would also have sued Google.