In a recent interview with NPR, Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney, whose company created the megapopular game Fortnite explained why he chose to launch a legal campaign against tech giants Apple and Google. According to Sweeney, the Big Tech Masters of the Universe “exploit” developers with the singular interest of furthering their “monopoly.”
Tech giant Apple is now seeking damages against Epic Games, the developers behind the wildly popular game Fortnite, which sued Apple alleging that the company took part in monopolistic practices in relation to its App Store.
In a recent article, MarketWatch questions whether video games could actually be Google and Apple’s weakness in antitrust cases. One venture capitalist commented, “These closed gardens feel like extortion. You need to pay to survive. It harkens to Microsoft and the Department of Justice investigation, and AT&T before that. With Apple and Google, it comes down to what is the ‘right’ take for the platforms? Thirty percent? 10%?”
Epic Games’ lawsuit against Apple is now well underway with the game developer scoring a partial win in the first ruling on the case. The court granted the developer a temporary restraining order against Apple following the tech giant’s threat to remove Epic’s Unreal Engine from multiple Apple platforms — an act of retaliation against the Fortnite company that would have impacted thousands of developers working on their own games and entertainment projects.
Epic Games, the studio behind the megapopular game Fortnite, alleges in a new court filing that tech giant Apple is holding its Unreal gaming engine “hostage” by threatening to cut off Epic’s developer tool access. Thousands of other developers in video games and entertainment rely on the Unreal engine to produce games and computer animation.
The creator of the megapopular Fortnite video game, Epic Games, has reportedly announced a new tournament taking place on August 23 where players will compete win anti-Apple prizes as the game developer continues its legal battle with tech giant Apple.
Tech giant Apple has reportedly threatened to remove Epic Games’ access to all the development tools necessary to create software for Apple’s platforms including the Unreal Engine Epic offers to third-party developers, a move the game developer calls an “existential threat.” The threat of retaliation ratchets up the ongoing dispute between the companies sparked by the removal of Fortnite from the Apple app store.
Epic Games, the company behind the massively popular game Fortnite, filed a lawsuit against Apple on Thursday after the Silicon Valley giant removed the game from its App Store, preventing players from accessing the games on iPhone and iPad devices. Epic released an ad after the banning which claims: “Epic Games has defied the App Store Monopoly. In retaliation, Apple is blocking Fortnite from a billion devices. Join the fight to stop 2020 from becoming ‘1984’”