The dispute between Epic Games and Apple now also concerns the US judiciary. A Californian district judge doesn’t help the "Fortnite" makers – on the contrary. She rejects an urgent application from the software company because there is no "irreparable damage".
In the dispute with the US technology group Apple, the video game developer Epic Games suffered a setback in court. The Californian district judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers rejected an urgent application from the developer of the popular "Fortnite" game in a decision. With this Epic Games wanted to achieve that Apple immediately has to include its programs in its App Store again. At the same time, however, the judge prohibited Apple from excluding Epic from its programming tools.
Epic could not prove to have suffered "irreparable damage" through the exclusion from the App Store, the judge said. The company "appears to have put itself in this difficult position" by apparently breaking its terms of contract with Apple.
Conversely, the judge granted Epic's urgent motion against the exclusion of development tools for Apple's operating systems. In this case, Epic did not break the terms of the contract. "The current dispute can easily be limited to competition law allegations in the App Store," she said. "It doesn't have to go any further."
Apple demands 30 percent
The dispute between Apple and the "Fortnite" makers had ignited in mid-August when Epic Games had released an update that was supposed to undermine charges to Apple as well as to Google. The move sparked a debate about the extent to which large platforms should determine the rules of the digital world. Apple charges 30 percent of the revenue that app programmers generate on the company's platforms. After the update, the company immediately removed "Fortnite" from its app store.
Epic then filed a lawsuit against the group for alleged violations of competition law. Apple threatened to deny Epic access to its program libraries. Microsoft then got involved and pointed out that Epic was developing the so-called Unreal Engine – a graphics programming framework that enables the visual representation of the 3D worlds and is used in numerous games, including those from Microsoft. If Epic could no longer provide these for Apple devices, numerous other game developers would suffer.
The judge recommended Epic to reverse its method of undermining Apple's fee system for the duration of the trial. The next court hearing is on September 28th.
While Epic Games was unwilling to comment on the court order, Apple stated, "We agree with the judge that the 'reasonable practice' would be for Epic to abide by the App Store rules and continue operations while the case progresses . " The company added: "If Epic takes the steps recommended by the judge, we would welcome Fortnite back to iOS."
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