Epic continues Free Fortnite campaign with EU antitrust case against Apple
The games firm is already suing the iPhone maker in the US, UK and Australia.
Fortnite maker Epic has continued its war with Apple by filing an antitrust complaint against the tech giant.
In a post on its website, the games firm said that it had filed the complaint with the European Union, saying that Apple has "carefully designed anti-competitive restrictions" with its App Store. The TL;DR here is that Epic is annoyed that it can't sell things directly to consumers in its games on Apple devices under the platform's restrictions.
“What’s at stake here is the very future of mobile platforms,” said Epic founder and CEO Tim Sweeney.
“Consumers have the right to install apps from sources of their choosing and developers have the right to compete in a fair marketplace. We will not stand idly by and allow Apple to use its platform dominance to control what should be a level digital playing field. It’s bad for consumers, who are paying inflated prices due to the complete lack of competition among stores and in-app payment processing. And it’s bad for developers, whose very livelihoods often hinge on Apple’s complete discretion as to who to allow on the iOS platform, and on which terms.”
Epic apparently isn't seeking damages – aka cool, hard cash – from Apple in this EU case, unlike similar cases in the US, Australia and the UK. Instead, the Fortnite maker claims to be "seeking fair access and competition that will benefit consumers and developers."
Epic's battle against Apple has been building for some time now and exploded last summer when Fortnite was kicked off the App Store for trying to circumvent the 30% platform free for using that service. The game was also given the boot from the Android equivalent, the Google Play store.
Almost straight away, Epic had filed lawsuits against both companies and released the Ninteen Eighty-Fortnite video (above) which riffed off Apple's iconic 1984 advert, which lambasted the tech giant's business practices.
At the end of last year, Epic was also sending out Free Fortnite swag to influencers.