Epic Games Retaliates After Google, Apple Kick Out Fortnite From App Stores
Recently, Epic Games’ launched its own in-app payment system that allows it to bypass Google and Apple’s 30% fee. Epic Games also offered discounts up to 20% through its new payment service.
However, Epic Games’ own payment system didn’t land well with Google and Apple. So, first Apple decided to kick off Fortnite from App Store, and after that, Google decided to do the same.
According to both Google and Apple, by introducing its own in-app payment system, Epic Games violates their policies.
Fortunately, the Android version of the game is still available through Epic Games official website and Samsung Galaxy Store for Samsung users. However, for iOS users, there’s no way of installing Fortnite if they hadn’t already done so.
Epic Games Wants Apple To Stop Its Monopoly On App Store
The decision to remove Fortnite from app stores infuriated Epic Games so much that the developer sued both Google and Apple.
Epic Games says that they don’t seek money from this lawsuit and they only want Apple and Google to stop dominating app developers.
Other than that, Fortnite included an in-game parody video of Apple’s 1984 commercial in which Apple’s App Store is portrayed as a monopolist. The game developer is calling gamers to support them in fighting against Apple and #FreeFortnite.
Similarly, according to Epic Games, Google’s payment restrictions on the Play Store also creates a monopoly, which violates the Sherman Act and California’s Cartwright Act. The developer says that Google “is using its size to do evil upon competitors, innovators, customers, and users in a slew of markets it has grown to monopolize.”
In response to all the heat from Epic Games, Google said that its consistent policies are there to make “Play Store safe for users.” And while Fortnite remains available on Android, they can no longer make it available on Play Store for violating its policies.
Moreover, Epic Games alleges that Google forced OnePlus to break off a deal that would have allowed a pre-installed Fortnite Launcher on OnePlus phones. According to the developer, Google also forced other Android phone makers like LG to drop such plans.
As of now, Google is silent on the entire debacle and refraining from making comments on such deals.
