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The story of Epic and Apple continues and now Epic has returned to court. The reason is that they think the court should force Apple to have Fortnite on the App Store while they fight, or as Epic puts it, “Today we ask the Court to stop Apple from retaliating against Epic for daring to challenge the misconduct of Apple as our antitrust case proceeds. ” “.
That Epic wants to fight and make money at the same time is perhaps not very surprising. In the document sent to the court, you have four reasons to file.
This motion is based on the fact that: (1) Epic is likely to be successful based on its assertions that Apple’s conduct violates the Sherman Act; (2) without a preliminary injunction, Epic is likely to suffer irreparable harm; (3) the balance of damages tips sharply in Epic’s favor; and (4) the public interest supports a court order.
They also tell why it was Epic who took the fight.
Epic was willing to take on Apple because it was the right thing to do and because it believed it was better positioned than many other companies to weather the storm. But Epic is not immune to irreparable damage. And Epic’s willingness to challenge an illegal monopoly is not a basis for ruling out its harm.
We also get some statistics and numbers. Games on iOS have been reduced by 60 percent since the dispute began, Epic says they have suffered “a loss of goodwill and irreparable damage to Epic’s reputation” and may have lost these players forever. This is also said to harm Epic’s dream of being everywhere (or creating a metaverse as you put it).
Epic themselves say that 116 million users have ever used Fortnite on iOS. The game has a total of 350 million users so that’s a lot, however there are certainly many who have only tried it once and some who only play on mobile devices. Epic says that the iOS version has been played for 2.86 billion hours and if I count correctly it’s an average of 23 hours per player, which is still pretty high considering Fortnite is free to download.
Apple has not responded to this particular document, but overall, their take is that if Epic removes their own in-game payment solution, they are welcome back.
