After Epic Games released a direct payment mechanism inside Fortnite designed to bypass the App Store’s payment system, prompting Apple to remove the listing from the store, Apple responded to Epic Games’ lawsuit accusing it of anticompetitive behavior in a legal filing on Friday.
In its court filing, Apple alleges that Epic Games asked for an individual arrangement with Apple, producing three emails from Epic CEO Tim Sweeney that bolster its claim.
This is Apple’s first significant legal response to Epic Games after the dispute between the two companies spilled into the courts.
“On June 30, 2020, Epic’s CEO Tim Sweeney wrote my colleagues and me an email asking for a ‘side letter’ from Apple that would create a special deal for only Epic that would fundamentally change the way in which Epic offers apps on Apple’s iOS platform,” former Apple Senior Vice President Phil Schiller wrote in a declaration. Schiller, whose title is now Fellow, runs Apple’s App Store.
Apple said Sweeney was asking permission for Epic to bypass in-app purchases and allow Fortnite players to pay it directly. Schiller said that Sweeney emailed him the morning that Forntite changed its payment mechanism saying that it “will no longer adhere to Apple’s payment processing restrictions.”
Epic has asked for a temporary restraining order that would place Fortnite back on the App Store. A hearing on that order is scheduled for Monday in the Northern District of California. “In the wake of its own voluntary actions, Epic now seeks emergency relief. But the ‘emergency’ is entirely of Epic’s own making,” Apple’s lawyers said in the filing.
MacDailyNews Take: Epic Games wants all of the benefits afforded to it by Apple’s App Store for free.
Over the weekend, a hot dog vendor was kicked out of the local mall. A few weeks prior, the hot dog guy had asked the mall for special permission to sell hot dogs rent-free and was, as expected, denied. The hot dog vendor then decided to roll into the mall and start selling hot dogs, notifying the mall after the fact.
The hot dog guy just rolled his cart in there, plugged in his neon sign, and started selling hot dogs!
After getting booted, he went down the road and tried to do it at the next mall, too. They kicked him out, too. Now, he’s suing both malls for “antitrust violations.”
Plus, he’s also filing suit to force the first mall to let him roll in to sell his hot dogs whenever he wants, regardless of the mall’s retail lease terms.
Gee, wonder if he’ll win his lawsuits?