Fortnite Files Lawsuit Against Apple And Google For Kicking It Out Of App Stores
On Thursday, tech giants Apple and Alphabet’s Google removed Fortnite, a popular video game, from their respective app stores. This comes in the wake of a fight picked by Epic Games with Apple over huge fees charged by the company on transactions in its mobile ecosystem.
After that, the popular gaming company finally decided to add a direct payment option to its mobile game earlier on Thursday.
This move prompted Apple to remove Fortnite from the App Store. In the following time, the apps Android version has gone missing from Google’s play store too. Both of them say that they kicked the gaming app for violating the in-app payment guidelines.
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In a statement, Google defended the decision by saying, “The open Android ecosystem lets developers distribute apps through multiple app stores. For game developers who choose to use the Play Store, we have consistent policies that are fair to developers and keep the store safe for users. While Fortnite remains available on Android, we can no longer make it available on Play because it violates our policies. However, we welcome the opportunity to continue our discussions with Epic and bring Fortnite back to Google Play.”
This has prompted Epic Games developers to filed a parallel suit against Google alleging that the company violated antitrust rules. Earlier in the day, Apple and Google cited a direct payment feature rolled out on the Fortnite app as the violation.
The lawsuit has been filed in the Northern District of California, in which Epic said in its “Apple has become what it once railed against: the behemoth seeking to control markets, block competition, and stifle innovation. Apple is bigger, more powerful, more entrenched, and more pernicious than the monopolists of yesteryear.”
Epic also launched an attack on Apple with a social media campaign by using the hashtag “#FreeFortnite” that urge players to seek refunds from Apple if they lose access to the game.
In a statement, Apple said the launch of the payment feature in Fortnite was intended towards violation of the App Store guidelines after almost a decade.
“The fact that their (Epic) business interests now lead them to push for a special arrangement does not change the fact that these guidelines create a level playing field for all developers and make the store safe for all users,” Apple said.
Launch in 2017, Epic’s free-to-play battle-royal videogame Fortnite has reached massive popularity among young gamers.
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