Epic Games v. Apple

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Epic Games, Inc. v. Apple Inc. was a lawsuit brought by Epic Games against Apple in August 2020 in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California , related to Apple's practices in the iOS App Store . Epic Games specifically had challenged Apple's restrictions on apps from having other in-app purchasing methods outside of the one offered by the App Store. Epic Games's founder Tim Sweeney had previously challenged the 30% revenue cut that Apple takes on each purchase made in the App Store, and with their game _Fortnite _, wanted to either bypass Apple or have Apple take less of a cut. Epic implemented changes in Fortnite intentionally on August 13, 2020, to bypass the App Store payment system, prompting Apple to block the game from the App Store and leading to Epic filing its lawsuit. Apple filed a countersuit, asserting Epic purposely breached its terms of contract with Apple to goad it into action, and defended itself from Epic's suit.

The trial ran from May 3 to May 24, 2021. In a September 2021 ruling in the first part of the case, Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers decided in favor of Apple on nine of ten counts, but found against Apple on its anti-steering policies under the California Unfair Competition Law . Rogers prohibited Apple from stopping developers from informing users of other payment systems within apps. Both Epic and Apple appealed the judgement, but in April 2023 the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeal in large part affirmed the District Court's decision. In January 2024, the Supreme Court denied the full appeals of both Apple and Epic in the case, leaving the case primarily a victory for Apple in allowing them to continue restricting app distribution to their App Store and to continue restricting in-app purchases to Apple's payment systems, but requiring Apple to allow developers to link to external websites offering alternate payment options (off-app purchases).

While Apple implemented App Store policies to allow developers to link to alternative payment options, the policies still required the developer to provide a 27% revenue share back to Apple, and heavily restricted how they could be shown in apps. Epic filed complaints that these changes violated the ruling, and in April 2025 Rogers found for Epic that Apple had willfully violated her injunction, placing further restrictions on Apple including banning them from collecting revenue shares from non-Apple payment methods or imposing any restrictions on links to such alternative payment options. Though Apple is appealing this latest ruling, they approved the return of Fortnite with its third-party payment system to the App Store in May 2025. The Supreme Court granted certaorari to Apple's appeal, to be heard as _Apple v. Epic Games _ in the 2026 term.

Epic also filed another lawsuit, _Epic Games v. Google _, the same day, which challenges Google's similar practices on the Google Play app store for Android , after Google pulled Fortnite following the update for similar reasons as Apple. However, that case centered more on the practices and deals that Google, as a dominant tech giant , wielded over partners to assure use of the Play Store. In December 2023, a jury ruled against Google in that it had unlawfully maintained its monopoly on the Android environment.

Contents

• 1 Background

• 2 Onset of legal action

  • 2.1 Countersuit

• 3 District court

  • 3.1 Preliminary hearing

  • 3.2 Pre-trial

  • 3.3 Trial

  • 3.4 Decision

• 4 Appeals

• 5 Enforcement

• 6 Aftermath

• 7 Reactions

• 8 Related actions

  • 8.1 By Epic Games

  • 8.2 Others

• 9 References

  • 9.1 Further reading

• 10 External links

Background

(https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Epic_Games_v._Apple&action=edit&section=1 "Edit section: Background")

See also: Epic Games v. Google

Epic Games's founder and CEO Tim Sweeney

Since 2015, Epic Games's founder and CEO Tim Sweeney had questioned the need for digital storefronts like Valve's Steam , Apple's App Store for iOS devices, and Google Play, to take a 30% revenue sharing cut, and argued that when accounting for current rates of content distribution and other factors needed, a revenue cut of 8% should be sufficient to run any digital storefront profitably.[1] [2] While a 30% revenue cut was an industry standard across computers, consoles, and mobile platforms in 2019,[3] Sweeney stated that higher revenue shares made sense on consoles where "there's enormous investment in hardware, often sold below cost, and marketing campaigns in broad partnership with publishers", but did not extend to open platforms like mobile devices and personal computers.[4] Part of the reasoning for creating the Epic Games Store was to demonstrate that Epic could operate at a lower commission percentage than 30%, using a 12% rate.[5] [6]

As Fortnite expanded from personal computers to other platforms with the popularity of the Battle Royale mode in 2018, Epic Games sought to bring the free-to-play game to mobile devices. When Epic first released its Android client, it offered it as a sideloaded package, rather than as a Google Play store app, as they did not want Google to take any revenue from the microtransactions in the game.[7] However, this resulted in a number of security concerns and numerous unscrupulous clones attempting to pass themselves off as the real Fortnite game in the Google Play store,[8] and by April 2020, Epic discontinued the sideloaded version and placed the game on the Google Play store.[9] As Apple does not allow sideloading on iOS devices, Epic had just released the client on the App Store directly in 2018.[10]

In mid-2020, Sweeney reiterated his stance on the 30% revenue cut that Apple and Google took, ahead of a large United States Congressional hearing investigating antitrust charges on Big Tech companies, including Google, and during similar investigations of Apple in the European Union .[11] Sweeney said in a July _CNBC _ interview that "Apple has locked down and crippled the ecosystem by inventing an absolute monopoly on the distribution of software, on the monetization of software", and "Google essentially intentionally stifles competing stores by having user interface barriers and obstruction".[12] Sweeney further stated that "If every developer could accept their own payments and avoid the 30% tax by Apple and Google we could pass the savings along to all our consumers and players would get a better deal on items. And you'd have economic competition."[12] After Apple stated that cloud gaming services like Microsoft 's xCloud were not allowed on the iOS platform as they would allow content that bypassed Apple's content review, Sweeney wrote "Apple has outlawed the metaverse . The principle they state, taken literally, would rule out all cross-platform ecosystems and games with user created modes: not just xCloud, Stadia , and GeForce NOW , but al

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