If you’d hoped to download the popular video game Fortnite from Apple’s App Store, you might have noticed something in the last few days: Fortnite is no longer there. The same is true at Google Play’s app store. In the middle of dozens of other crises, difficulty accessing a particular video game might not register as all that alarming. But Fortnite is a big enough deal that it’s been used as a high-profile place to promote blockbuster films like Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker and Tenet. So it begs the question: what exactly is going on?
The issue surrounds in-app payments. Fortnite publisher Epic Games would like the game’s users to go through them directly; Google and Apple both require in-app purchases for apps downloaded through their stores to also utilize their store’s systems, and the tech companies take a cut. (It’s worth mentioning that you can also install Fortnite directly from Epic.) Now, Epic is looking to win hearts and minds — as well as a legal battle.
The “hearts and minds” side of things comes via pointed public statements addressed to Apple and Google. In the case of Apple, it’s through a parody of Apple’s own 1984 commercial which, in this case, paints Apple as the staid corporate villain.
Epic used a similar tactic in its response to Google, calling out the technology company for breaking from its bygone slogan of “Don’t Be Evil.” Clever ad campaigns only go so far, though; Epic Games has also filed lawsuits against both Apple and Google.
While Fortnite‘s method of arguing is fairly unique, the question of in-app transactions is a broader one. Even if you couldn’t care less about playing Fortnite, the ramifications of these cases could be huge when it comes to the app world.
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