Tim Sweeney today confirmed on Twitter how massive a “L” Epic took in the recent Apple trial. Apple
has effectively “blacklisted” Fortnite from all Apple products until it concludes the conflict between the
two major companies, which could take up to five years. (In Peely years, it’s even longer.)
Sweeney posted a letter from Apple from Epic confirming that the account will not be re-established for Epic Apple Developers. Epic cannot even ask for re-establishment of the account until “the court judgement becomes final and inappealable.” According to Sweeney, it can take up to five years, which also claims that this is a renege on Apple’s previous position to both court and the press. But since Epic is trying to appeal the decision now, I would argue that Apple’s reluctance to return it to the platform is perfectly meaningful.
In order to summarise the entire ridiculous situation, Apple disabled the account developer of Epic Games last year after a fortnite update which enabled users to bypass the Apple ecosystem for in-app purchases. Epic undertook to avoid Apple’s customary 30 percent reduction in its purchase income. Epic then sued Apple because it claimed it was anti-competitive and unfair to remove them from Apple’s platform. Apple filed a countersuit immediately claiming that Epic had breached Apple’s contract. This set the stage for an unbelievably stupid trial and for two of the power-hungry tech giants’ goals.
Certainly, some people are upset that they can’t do Fortnite playing on their iPhones, and that’s a snare to them, but that doesn’t do much to undermine the joy that watching businesses mess up publicly. I can do little but hope this beautiful train will continue for a little longer as the two companies are hitting each other publicly in favour of all other app developers.
