Towards the end of 2020, the news came that one of the biggest games in the world, Fortnite, would be removed from both Apples app store and the Google marketplace too for a breach of terms of service when the developer and publisher, Epic Games, added a payment option to the mobile version of the game for their in-game currency that would circumvent the typical means. This was done as both Apple and Google charge a 30% rate on all in-app purchases, and something that Epic wanted to avoid, but had led to a length legal battle in the meantime with Epic Games suggesting the practices that Apple were using were anti-competitive, and that this 30% tax rate should go.
Back at the start of this year, Apple did make the first step by reducing this fee to 15% for smaller developers earning under a threshold, but not something that would include larger revenue businesses – the change did lead to hopes that other genres may be more willing to jump onto these platforms, especially transaction heavy apps like online casinos just like these as they have been growing in popularity particularly for non-UK options but have often been underrepresented with this typical being cited as a reason why, as the transaction rates being so high mean these online platforms lose out massively.
The most recent court ruling could lead to some big changes coming – although Epic had been ordered to pay millions in fees to Apple for the duration of the case, it also ruled that whilst Apple didn’t hold a monopoly on the app marketplace, the approach was anti-competitive and needed to be changed, and the ruling suggests that Apple will now have to allow developers to include a link or button out to a third-party service for payment, effectively circumventing the 30% rate that’s usually applied.
There is some mixed language here that could mean there’s some grey area to operate in, but could be a signal that major changes are coming to app store practices and may have a big impact on the games that are represented on them too – whilst it seems this decision won’t be appealed as Apple CEO Tim Cook has suggested he’s looking forward to move on from this case, but there’s still a chance for decisions to be appealed and for other changes to come.
As for Fortnite itself, it doesn’t look like it’ll come back to the iOS app store any time soon as there would be many steps involved in doing so included adding Epic Games developer status back to the platform, and for the mean time Google and its play store have remained out of the spotlight, which may be the next step for Epic if the belief exists that Google may be doing the same.
