Epic Wins It's Battle vs Apple
What seems like forever ago apple terminated the popular video game Fortnite saying they broke their rules by offering other payment methods besides what apple offers. Because of this Apple said they where in violation and removed the app from their store.
This caused millions of apple users who played Fortnite to be stuck on whatever season they downloaded before it was taken off.
When this news first came out my firs thought was well Epic is right they shouldn't be restricting you and kicking you off their platform just because you offer other payment methods. Doing so means you now created a monopoly on the entire platform.
What feels like a year or more later the final verdict is in and with it this new order:
permanently restrained and enjoined from prohibiting developers from including in their apps and their metadata buttons, external links, or other calls to action that direct customers to purchasing mechanisms, in addition to In-App Purchasing and communicating with customers through points of contact obtained voluntarily from customers through account registration within the app.
This means Apple can no longer restrict and prevent an application to only use their apple store. They are now REQUIRED to allow and direct customers to other payment options beyond those offered by Apple.
Both parties however where at fault from the final verdict and so the entire roadmap moving forward is as follows.
Epic was found that it did violate Apples terms by offering alternative payment methods and must pay 30% of the revenue collected since it was implemented which is 3.5 million dollars.
Apple was in violation of Anti-competitive conduct which is a clear violation of California's competition laws.
Apple must add the app back on to it's store within 90 days or sooner if a higher court enjoins the verdict.
This to me is one of the victories of the court and legal system. Apple has been using these tactics for far too long. Competition is good and when a company clearly attacks and removes competition from their systems it's a bad day for everyone and eventually leads to a monopoly. It's how these mega corps continue to grow and grow because of these shady tactics.
I know it might not seem like much but it's actually a big thing in terms of opening up companies more to competition and allowing customers options. This competition gets customers lower costs and applies to everything outside of this little lawsuit.
It will be interesting to watch the stock prices of both Apple (AAPL) and Epic(EPOR) today to see if it has any impact. My thoughts are AAPL will see a decline being that more apps are now going to use alternative methods thus reducing the amount of fees Apple now brings in.
EPOR Could possibly have a bump as they will be able to hit the apple user base again soon and push all of their new games including Fortnite through the store.
What are you thoughts on the verdict?
