When the termination of the Epic Games developer account was just one week away on August 28, Apple officially responded to the Fornite developer’s lawsuit with a court filing. Despite what Epic CEO Tim Sweeney has said, Apple’s Phil Schiller says that Epic asked for a special deal and revealed how Sweeney approached the situation by submitting three emails in the case.
Reported by CNBC, Apple’s lawsuit is the company’s first official response in the lawsuit with Epic. Apple claims that it is Epic, not itself, that is guilty of anti-competitive practices.
Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney previously defended the company as Apple unofficially said it was asking for a special deal. Now shared in three emails as part of its first court submission in the case, Apple provided some evidence for the allegation about how Epic requested special treatment and used anti-competitive practices.
On June 30, 2020, the CEO of Epic, Tim Sweeney, my colleagues and I wrote an email asking for a ‘side letter’ from Apple that would make a special deal for only Epic which is the way Epic apps work Apple’s iOS platform offering would change, ”former Apple Senior Vice President Phil Schiller wrote in a statement. Schiller, whose title is now Fellow, runs Apple’s App Store.
Schiller further stated, “that Sweeney emailed him this morning that Fortnite had changed its payment mechanism, saying that it ‘will no longer comply with Apple’s restrictions on Apple’s payment processing.”
When Epic announced that Apple was giving a head start on its termination of the account, Epic said the move was revenge for protesting Apple’s App Store policy and filing another lawsuit filed in the Northern District Court of California. asked to prevent Apple from terminating.
In the last two weeks, Apple has made it clear that Fortnite can return to the App Store and Epic prevents its developer account from being deleted by submitting a submitted version of the popular game without the direct payment option that got it banned. Apple reiterated that and noted together how it sees the situation as part of its new submission.
In the wake of its own voluntary actions, Epic is now seeking emergency assistance. But the “need” is entirely Epic’s own making. Epic’s agreements with Apple expressly state that if an app developer violates the App Store rules or the license for development tools – which are both applicable and equally maintained for all developers large and small – Apple will discontinue to work with that developer. Developers working to deceive Apple, as Epic did here, will be terminated.
Seen in one of the full emails (shown below), Sweeney said “We hope Apple will make these options equally available to all iOS developers …”, but the fact that it asked for its own “side letter” “To create their own app store, Epic will certainly not help retain (or win) the support of small developers, as the lawsuit against Apple for that matter.
Even though Epic’s position looks weaker, one tricky aspect of all of this is for Apple’s special deal with Amazon where more specifics came to light recently. That, along with other examples of exceptions for other big companies like Microsoft, makes it difficult for Apple to claim that it treats all developers equally.
You can read Apple’s full filing here in the Epic case here.
FTC: We use revenue-generating links for auto-affiliate. More.
Check out 9to5Mac on YouTube for more Apple news:
