I Just Got BANNED from Fortnite!
On Thursday of August the 27th, nearly a billion Fortnite mobile gamers are now unable to participate in the highly anticipated Season 4 within the mobile game. This is due to the ongoing lawsuit Epic has with Apple Inc… Yes, Apple. The dispute ensued around August 14th, whenever Epic games released a new form of payment for gamers across all consoles. Epics games disagrees with Apple’s TOS (Terms of Service), after Apple had been forcing a 30% cut from all in-game purchases. Although this may not be a big deal for a major company such as Epic games, a 30% cut to Apple can really do damage to smaller developers that exist on the app store.
30% may sound like a small number to some people who aren’t aware of this situation, but Apple isn’t the only major company taking such a large payout from developers and creators. Imagine forking up 30% of your profits to a company that does absolutely nothing to help curate or develop your content. In all fairness, Apple does present a very valuable platform, and they do deserve a cut, but definitely not 30%. Until now, no one has openly challenged Apple Inc., since Spotify introduced Spotify Premium. The reason that Spotify did not get removed from the app store, was because Spotify didn’t announce to their customers, that their payment method existed outside of the app store.
Apple has created an impenetrable platform that forces all creators to fork up 30%, no matter how much they’re currently making as a developer or creator. Epic announced on the 14th, that they had created a new payment method that slashed v-bucks prices, which is the in-game currency, by 20% across all gaming platforms. This was created mainly because many players, such as myself, hated forking up $9.99 per 1,000 v-bucks every time something really awesome showed up in the in-game store. Although this is something that I rarely ever do, I thought it was a great idea for Epic to lower prices to $7.99 per 1,000 v-bucks considering the demographic for Fortnite gamers is anywhere from children to young adults.
The snowball began to grow after Epic games announced this new form of payment method, which operates outside of the app store. The payment physically takes you to a new website, where you can pay with a debit/credit card or through Paypal. In Apple’s app store TOS, you cannot announce to your customers that there is another way to pay, wherein Apple will not receive a cut. For this very reason, Apple banned Fortnite from the app store, which left mobile gamers around the world, such as myself, high and dry.
Epic Games has defied the App Store Monopoly. In retaliation, Apple is blocking Fortnite from a billion devices.
Although nearly a billion mobile gamers are not unable to play, Epic knew that Apple would respond this way. Epic prepared a major lawsuit against Apple Inc., and they also recreated a spoof from Apple’s 1984 Macintosh release commercial, which has been done several times in the past. In this 48 second long video, they portray Apple as the mind-controlling antagonist, which is seemingly very bold and upfront as to why Epic is pursuing their lawsuit against Apple. Epic’s stance on this lawsuit is that Apple has created a monopolist anti-trust platform that is unfair and needs to change.
As you can imagine, this lawsuit quickly went viral in less than an hour of its announcement. The hashtag #FreeFortnite began trending for about a day as Fortnite also streamed the commercial on a loop throughout several of its platforms such as Twitch, Youtube, Periscope, and within the Party Royale lobby of the game.
It may sound pretty straightforward, as far as this just being a dispute between two major companies, but it goes much further and deeper than that. PUBG is another major mobile game that is arguably bigger than Fortnite, and unarguably brings in billions of dollars more in revenue from the game. PUBG is available to play through the app store and has been available to play a little while before Fortnite came out right after. PUBG forks up the same 30% cut as Fortnite does from Apple. The catch is that PUBG runs on Unreal Engine which is a major gaming engine developed by Epic games. Epic could play their cards correctly and threaten to remove PUBG from the app store, which would be another major pay cut to Apple; even more of a pay cut than losing Fortnite!
Apple has also had their words with Fortnite. While Fortnite knew the impending fate for mobile players, they decided to host one last multi-platform tournament, before mobile players were inevitably removed from real-time play. The tournament was called the “Free Fortnite” cup and there were a range of prizes from new playable characters to phone giveaways. One of the major giveaways from the tournament was the “Apple” antagonist character from the recreated video Epic released the day that they filed the lawsuit.
The plot-twist, is that when it came time for the winners to receive that character, it was never sent to anyone’s account. It is believed by several major gamers, that Apple prevented this character from going out and being distributed within the game as it was a slight to Apple. It has been interesting watching the lawsuit unfold, but disappointing to millions of mobile players across the world, especially during an international quarantine. There has been little to no information leaked as to how the case has been proceeding and whose favor its leaning toward, so it’s impossible to know if Fortnite mobile will ever return to the app store. This lawsuit has the ability to change the way mobile games are presented in the future. Both companies have cards to play, and hopefully they can settle this lawsuit without having to deal those cards.
