Fortnite creator Epic Games Inc has taken its fight against Apple Inc to EU antitrust regulators after failing to make headway in a US court in a dispute over the iPhone maker’s payment system on its App Store and control over apps downloads.
The two companies have been locked in a legal dispute since August last year, when the game maker tried to get around Apple’s 30 percent fee on some in-app purchases on the App Store by launching its own in-app payment system.
That prompted Apple to kick Epic’s Fortnite game off the App Store and threaten to terminate an affiliated account that would have effectively blocked distribution of Unreal Engine, a software tool used by hundreds of app makers to create games.
Photo: Reuters
FAIR COMPETITION
Epic Games founder and CEO Tim Sweeney said that Apple’s control of its platform has tilted the level playing field.
“The 30 percent they charge as their app tax, they can make it 50 percent or 90 percent or 100 percent. Under their theory of how these markets are structured, they have every right to do that,” he told reporters.
“Epic is not asking any court or regulator to change this 30 percent to some other number, only to restore competition on iOS,” he said, referring to Apple’s mobile operating system.
The company also accused Apple of barring rivals from launching their own gaming subscription service on its platform by preventing them from bundling several games together — when its own service, called Apple Arcade, does that.
‘DECEPTIVE’
Apple said its rules apply equally to all developers and that Epic had contravened them.
“In ways a judge has described as deceptive and clandestine, Epic enabled a feature in its app, which was not reviewed or approved by Apple, and they did so with the express intent of violating the App Store guidelines that apply equally to every developer and protect customers,” the company said in a statement.
“Their reckless behavior made pawns of customers, and we look forward to making this clear to the European Commission,” it said.
The commission, which is investigating Apple’s mobile payment system Apple Pay and the App Store, declined to comment on the complaint, saying it was aware of the concerns regarding Apple’s App Store rules.
Epic Games has also complained to the UK Competition Appeal Tribunal and to the Australian watchdog, at the same time seeking damages.
It has not asked EU enforcers for damages.
DAMAGE REPORT: Global central banks are assessing war-driven inflation risks as the law of unintended consequences careens around the world, spiking oil prices Central banks from Washington to London and from Jakarta to Taipei are about to make their first assessments of economic damage after more than two weeks of conflict between the US and Iran. Decisions this week encompassing every member of the G7 and eight of the world’s 10 most-traded currency jurisdictions are likely to confirm to investors that the specter of a new inflation shock is already worrying enough to prompt heightened caution. The US Federal Reserve is widely expected to do exactly what everyone anticipated weeks ahead of its March 17-18 policy gathering: hold rates steady. The narrative surrounding that
PRICE HIKES: The war in the Middle East would not significantly disrupt supply in the short term, but semiconductor companies are facing price surges for materials Taiwan’s semiconductor companies are not facing imminent supply disruptions of essential chemicals or raw materials due to the war in the Middle East, but surges in material costs loom large, industry association SEMI Taiwan said yesterday. The association’s comments came amid growing concerns that supplies of helium and other key raw materials used in semiconductor production could become a choke point after Qatar shut down its liquefied natural gas (LNG) production and helium output earlier this month due to the conflict. Qatar is the second-largest LNG supplier in the world and accounts for about 33 percent of global helium output. Helium is
About 1,000 participants, including more than 200 venture capitalists, joined the Taiwan Demo Day in Silicon Valley on Saturday, the largest iteration to date of the event held ahead of Nvidia Corp’s annual GPU Technology Conference which runs from today to Thursday. Taiwan Demo Day, co-organized by the Taiwan Next Foundation and the Startup Island Taiwan Silicon Valley Hub, took place at the Computer History Museum in California, showcasing 12 teams focused on physical artificial intelligence (AI) and agentic AI technologies. Katie Hsieh (謝凱婷), founder of the Taiwan Next Foundation, said the event highlighted the strength of the Taiwan-US start-up ecosystem, with
DOMESTIC COMPONENT: Huang identified several Taiwanese partners to be a key part of Nvidia’s Vera Rubin supply chain, including Asustek, Hon Hai and Wistron Nvidia Corp chief executive officer Jensen Huang (黃仁勳), addressing crowds at the company’s biggest annual event, unveiled a variety of new products while predicting that its flagship artificial intelligence (AI) processors would help generate US$1 trillion in sales through next year. During a two-and-a-half-hour keynote address, Huang announced plans to push deeper into central processing units (CPUs) — Intel Corp’s home turf — and introduced semiconductors made with technology acquired from start-up Groq Inc. The company even said it was developing chips for data centers in outer space. At the heart of Huang’s speech was the message that demand for computing power
RSS