More reports from the trenches in the legal war between Apple and Epic.
[MUSIC]
If you haven't been paying attention to the Epic versus Apple antitrust fight.
Here's a quick recap.
In August 2020, epic updated fortnight with a competing epic pay option for in app purchases that bypass the App Store payment system.
Apple did not like that they yanked fortnight off the App Store.
Epic immediately sued Apple.
Apple then said it was going to terminate epics developer accounts, including the one that manages Unreal Engine Epic freaked out demanded a temporary restraining orders stop those bands from happening.
And the judge in the case decided to allow Apple to ban fortnight from the app store, but not Unreal Engine.
this most recent hearing was to decide if those temporary decisions made in that emergency meeting.
Would be permanent as the case rolls toward a full trial.
Now Apple got what it wanted when the judge upheld the ban on fortnight from the app store in that earlier hearing.
So it spent time in this one arguing epic was using its international developer account.
That's the one that.
Overseas Unreal engine development which a lot of apps use to break App Store rules and get around the ban on epics other developer account.
That's the one that manages fortnight and its other IOS games that is currently banned.
Epic, on the other hand had kind of an uphill battle to fight to overturn the temporary ruling on the day.
Banned and continued to make arguments that Apple's 30% commission was excessive.
And that the App Store and in-app purchases were separate standalone aftermarkets both monopolized by Apple.
Since developers have to use the App Store to offer their app on an iPhone and Apple doesn't allow third party payment processing.
Unfortunately for Epic, those arguments didn't seem to sway Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers.
Who noted that just about every other platform offering in app purchases charges that same 30% Commission, and that epic inflicted harm on itself by willfully and knowingly breaking App Store rules.
By adding that third party payment option to fortnight via hotfix.
The judge also made three really interesting comments during the hearing, one, that this was kind of the frontier of antitrust case law, two, that maybe this isn't the right plaintiff for this argument, suggesting that maybe another developer with deeper reliance on the apps Store might have a stronger case to make here, and three that this case should be heard by a jury to understand what real people think.
She also offered a kind of peace deal between the two companies epic would remove the payment option that broke the rules, and Apple would let fortnight back into the app store.
For that 30% commission would then be put into some kind of escrow situation until the trial was completed and then that money would be dispersed accordingly.
So Apple lawyer said.
Okay, that's interesting.
We'll take it back to the company for consideration.
But epics lawyers just straight up said no, not interested at all.
Ultimately, it looks like nothing is going to change heading into next year.
The judge believes this was a contractual agreement that was breached on purpose by epic to pick up Fight.
Apple had the right to terminate the Epic Games developer account and banned fortnight from the App Store.
But Apple would do harm to other developers if it banned the epic international account, which is again the one that handles Unreal Engine.
A trial was tentatively set for July 2021.
So It looks like fortnight won't be back in the app Store anytime soon.
Can epic make a compelling argument and change the way digital goods are commissioned?
Stay tuned to cnet.com for updates on this app store Battle Royale.
[BLANK_AUDIO]
