Epic Games Vs Google and Apple: Whose Side Are You On?

While we were focused on the ‘console war’, Epic Games was preparing for one of its own. The last few hours have been absolutely crazy considering the announcements made by Epic, Apple, and Google. It all started with Epic announcing a bypass for its customers by offering them a direct gateway to purchase Fortnite V-bucks through their website. This is so that they don’t have to bear the brunt of the 30% fee imposed on transactions by Google and Apple. Obviously, this meant trouble.

Apple was the first to react. Fortnite was removed from the App store soon after Epic’s announcement. But it looks like this is exactly what they wanted. Shortly after the removal from the store, Epic filed a lawsuit against Apple.

Google also banned the game from its Play Store shortly after. And of course Epic had planned for this as well and reportedly filed a case against them, too. Take a look at Rod Breslau’s tweet below

Epic Games accuses Apple of being monopolistic

But they didn’t stop there. They are going all out with their action against Apple where they recreated an old Apple ad. Epic has also been streaming it live for the past 14 hours and counting. They even started a trend with #FreeFortnite to rally more people to join their cause.

This is in response to Apple’s own advertisement back from back in the day when they made a statement against IBM’s supposed monopolistic reign.

But now as Epic claims, “Apple has become what it once railed against: the behemoth seeking to control markets, block competition, and stifle innovation”

As poetic as it seems, this is not to be taken as a mere marketing move by epic. It is no joke going up against two of the biggest tech companies in the world. But is this justified? And if it is, what do Apple and Google to say for themselves?

Taking Epic’s case into consideration, they make a strong case where they call out their monopolistic capabilities. This reminisces the 1998 Microsoft Antitrust case a lot. Similar allegations were made where Microsoft was accused of monopolizing the PC and software industry. At its core was the fact that uninstalling the Internet Explorer caused problems to the Os and it wouldn’t let third-party software like Netscape or Java run smoothly. Microsoft was definitely on the backfoot and eventually had to agree upon a settlement that gave developers access to its systems, records, and source code for 5 years to ensure compliance.

Take a look at these tweets from Daniel Ahmad

According to this, the 30% charge by Apple and Google seems exorbitant.

Also Read: Twitter Reacts To The War Between Epic Games and Apple

How can Google and Apple defend themselves?

But on the other hand, there is a major security concern. And this is where Apple and Google can make their cases. Take a look at this twitter thread from Analyst Benedict Evans.

And to an extent, this makes sense too. The two companies can also argue that by providing a bypass to their systems, Epic also broke the rules where they probably snuck in another mode of payment. This will not sit well with either of the developers.

But individually, Apple is in a defensive position because it has had problems with Facebook Gaming and Microsoft’s xCloud services. Facebook had to launch its gaming app on iOS almost 2 months after the android launch because iOS wouldn’t let it publish the app with certain features enabled. Eventually, Facebook gave in and had to remove those features.

The testing of the xCloud on iOS was also reportedly cut short due to the App Store’s strict policies. This makes it look like Apple is the bad guy and is imposing a lot of restrictions on other developers.

Both sides have valid arguments and it still doesn’t provide us with a clear winner. It will all come down to the fact that who is more transparent and is providing more benefits to its customers. Things have been set in motion and there’s no turning back now for Epic Games. But one thing is for certain that whatever the outcome of this will be, it’ll change the face of the tech industry forever.