Epic Vs Apple Court Case Over, For Now

Well, it has finally happened. It took a year, a bit of an Orwell parody of a parody propaganda, several lawsuits in multiple places, and the judge predicting the future, but here we are, both won and lost. Well, kind of. If you’ve not heard: Apple won their court case against Epic Games. Conversely, Epic Games won their court case against Apple. There is a bit that needs to be unpacked here.

On Friday morning, Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers filed her final ruling on the court case that began last year following Epic updating Fortnite and Apple removing the game from the Apple App Store. Judge Rogers concluded her hearing of the two parties’ cases earlier this year after some very fun and interesting reveals. Revelations ranged from Tim Sweeney’s comment that he’d have taken a special deal given to Epic on the App Store, how much the free games on the Epic Games Store are costing, and watching the lizard-robots fight in defining a video game. It has been ridiculous and laundry has been on exhibition for all to recognize since then.

BREAKING: Apple was ordered by a court to change the way it operates its lucrative App Store in a sweeping ruling from an antitrust case filed by Epic Games https://t.co/FNSppdmXEj pic.twitter.com/S97Ym35a8n

— Bloomberg (@business) September 10, 2021

However, Friday’s ruling threw up a couple of curveballs, as the press scrambled to cover the news as quickly as possible. Bloomberg and several others called it an Epic victory, yet anyone who bothers to look at the 185-page ruling document signed by Judge Rogers will tell you otherwise. I won’t go into extraneous detail or bore you to death with each count that the separate parties won. Mostly because the court documents show that it was 9 counts to 1 in favor of Apple on the rulings Judge Rogers handed out. However, that one count that Epic won will change the landscape of the mobile market in the months and years to come. Apple has been ordered to allow third-party payments, previously requiring all in-app purchases to be made through the App Store with Apple taking 30%.

That is where Judge Rogers’ rulings end the “good news” for developers wanting the 30%, as the ruling on the anti-trust suit bundled in here was ruled in Apple’s favor. Thus, they are not considered a monopoly by the courts following this case. Further rulings in favor of Apple note that Epic will have to pay what Apple lost out on during this case as a result of Epic’s update to Fortnite skirting the 30% payment fee. The ruling states that Epic will pay 30% of damages equaling that of $12,167,719 in revenue that Epic Games collected from end-users of Fortnite on iOS between August to October 2020. Furthermore, another 30% of said revenue collected between November 1st of 2020 until September 10th of 2021 will also be paid out, though there is no number attached to that time period.

Following this, it was also ruled that Apple was fully within its rights to terminate any Developer Product Licensing Agreements with Epic or further Epic affiliations. To jargon-bust that hodgepodge of nonsense: when Epic pulled their stunt back in August of 2020, resulting in Apple pulling the plug on all Epic-based products or affiliations such as games developed in Unreal Engine, Apple was correct to do so. Thus, Epic put smaller affiliations in harm’s way to get the ruling that Apple will have to waive their 30% fee for in-app purchases. This arguably counters the “Good guy Epic” image disseminated by the 1980-Fortnite propaganda and that idea Epic was looking out for smaller developers all along.

This is where we turn to good guy Twitter and tech columnist, Mark Gurman, for Apple’s statement following the ruling: “Today the Court has affirmed what we’ve known all along: The App Store is not in violation of antitrust law. As the Court recognized ‘success is not illegal’.” That is a PR way of saying, All Quiet on the Western Front. In truth, it was decreed that Epic could not provide sufficient evidence that Apple was acting unlawfully in terms of the anti-trust laws. The statement as a whole ignored the ruling in favor of Epic, which results in Apple having to allow third-party purchases to be done, skirting their 30% share fee on in-app purchases.

Also on Twitter in response to Gurman’s tweet with the Apple statement, Tim Sweeney said: “Today’s ruling isn’t a win for developers or for consumers.” Those are fighting words right there, Tim, watch out. He went on to say, “Epic is fighting for fair competition among in-app payment methods and app stores for a billion consumers.” He further went on to state that Fortnite will return to iOS in markets where Epic can offer competition against Apple’s in-app purchases. Sweeney later thanked those who “put so much time and effort into the battle over fair competition,” and the court for handling such a case as swiftly as it did.

After a bit of digging and a bit of reading the statements, what has changed is (in fact) very little in terms of making things easier for the consumer. The ruling in favor of Epic notes that developers of apps on the Apple App Store can provide a link, as far as we’re understanding it. That link can take you to a third-party area (a site for example) where you deposit money for an exchange for whatever the typical in-app purchase would be. However, as you may have noticed, that is not an in-app purchase and thus it seems like it is more faff than a majority of users would care to deal with. It doesn’t get rid of Apple’s 30%, it just allows competition against it in such a way. However, the rumor is that Epic won’t let this go and Judge Rogers’ prediction of further litigation will come true.