Why would they move to dismiss when they have epic by the balls? If anything epic should be dropping this nonsense, paying back what they owe and stop being whiny little b**ches.
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Apple Accuses Epic Games of 'Willful, Brazen, and Unlawful Conduct' in Countersuit Asking for Breach of Contract Damages
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Why would they move to dismiss when they have epic by the balls? If anything epic should be dropping this nonsense, paying back what they owe and stop being whiny little b**ches.
For a non-native speaker from Europe it was educational to read the brief and learning new expressions like: comity, lachel, estoppel and "unclean hands". 
I have not heard anyone pick-up on the fact the Apple asks the courts for permission to ban all Epic subsidiaries, i.e. Unreal engine.
I have not heard anyone pick-up on the fact the Apple asks the courts for permission to ban all Epic subsidiaries, i.e. Unreal engine.
Thanks god there is +2 MILLION apps in the iOS App Store then.
And devs get 70% of all sales. One click from the Home Screen. No need for users to be aware of your random website. Specifically for Epic, they’re worth more than a billion dollars thanks to sales in App Stores.
Sounds to me like the App Store is quite amazing. But this billion dollar company isn’t satisfied with keeping 70%. I have no empathy for them.
For a non-native speaker from Europe it was educational to read the brief and learning new expressions like: comity, lachel, estoppel and "unclean hands".
I have not heard anyone pick-up on the fact the Apple asks the courts for permission to ban all Epic subsidiaries, i.e. Unreal engine.
Hoeg law on YouTube has been doing a really good job covering these shenanigans. He definitely covered that aspect and point out apple is well within their right to terminate any developer it wants for any reason or no reason with a 30 day notice.
If it’s as open-and-shut as you describe, it’s what any sensible corporate legal team would do. No sense in taking it to trial if there’s no trial to be had.
Not how it works. Apple has to see this through to prevent other from trying the same thing. If apple just gives up who will be the next company to try and steal from apple?
Again, if it’s as open-and-shut as you describe the case may be dismissed with prejudice which would certainly prohibit Epic from suing Apple over this again and, well, let’s just say the dismissal with prejudice wouldn’t go unnoticed if any company tried to do the same thing later on.
I think Apple are on a win here.
Epic tried to pull a Swifty and it backfired in their face.
The biggest thing I hate about the App Store is in app purchases I think you should just pay for a game and that’s it not all these $99.99 in app purchases it’s a joke. Developer that wants to give away a game free and then charge you hundreds of dollars to continue to play it is just as bad as Apple what they charge for their phones That are two years behind the rest.
just my two cents Because that’s all I got.
Epic tried to pull a Swifty and it backfired in their face.
The biggest thing I hate about the App Store is in app purchases I think you should just pay for a game and that’s it not all these $99.99 in app purchases it’s a joke. Developer that wants to give away a game free and then charge you hundreds of dollars to continue to play it is just as bad as Apple what they charge for their phones That are two years behind the rest.
just my two cents Because that’s all I got.
Nice to see the majority on Apple's side in these forums.
Sad though to see what was a good relationship turn to tihs.
I really enjoyed the Infinity Blade series and was more than a bit annoyed, when I bought my new iPad Pro earlier this year, to find I couldn't install any of them on it that I'd previously paid for.
Sad though to see what was a good relationship turn to tihs.
I really enjoyed the Infinity Blade series and was more than a bit annoyed, when I bought my new iPad Pro earlier this year, to find I couldn't install any of them on it that I'd previously paid for.
Apple's lawyers if successful are lining up to take 100% of what ever Epic earned from Fortnite users via their direct sales, punitive damages and expenses for a case that pretty solidly favours them. I'm sure they will push at the preliminary injunction to fully cut Epic Games off completely. Apple are arguing they can cut anyone off for any reason with at least 30 days notice and that they shouldn't be restrained from being required to maintain this contract against their will. Apple aren't going to file a motion to dismiss, Epic just gift wrapped a pay day for them.
The TRO emphasis is on maintaining the status quo whilst further arguments are made. Apple got to get rid of Fortnite and related apps and lost cutting off Epic International on what was a bit of a stretch in the public interest. We'll see if that continues in Epic's favour when Apple has much more time to prepare a response.
This, alas.
Tim Sweeney suddenly got rich beyond the dreams of avarice by selling impulse-bought digital vanity goods to children. Whatever you think of the ethics of a revenue model based almost entirely on getting children to make impulse purchases of digital vanity goods, to imagine that Sweeney is on some crusade to free the world from Big Brother’s digital tyranny is utterly ludicrous.
(Epic’s Unreal Tournament, by the way, presciently had a “BigHead” mutator where the more people you killed, the bigger your head swelled — not unlike Sweeney’s reaction to making money, it seems.)
I’m wishing now that Epic had stuck to developing and licensing the Unreal Engine, and I’m sorry that Sweeney’s grasping desire to keep every last penny of the money he milks from his young players looks set to torpedo a great cross-platform game engine.
Last edited:
But what portion of the bill are they footing?
If you’re only talking about credit card processing and app distribution costs, that only a small portion of the services, licensed IP, etc. included in the 30%.
Even if Epic were somehow allowed to process their own payments and host their own app, they still owe Apple maybe a 27% revenue share for everything else—including a nice little profit for Apple.
Last edited:
The trolls and astroturfers have largely been beaten into submission with facts and logic. They’ve moved to more fertile ground lol.
Sure, but you don’t find it at least somewhat disconcerting that if Apple were to raise their rate to 50% basically nothing would stop them? It’s like Apple sitting on an oilfield, and yes they’ve developed that oil field and continue investing into new extraction methods, but to some degree they are just profiting from an exploding demand for oil and an accompanying rise in the price of oil.
On an even more general level, it’s a discussion whether an increase in the value of something one owns (Apple owns the iOS platform) should be completely one’s own even if a significant portion of that increase in value is due to market forces and not your own efforts. A common example is a piece of land that becomes much more valuable because of economic growth (growth of cities, surging prices in central areas). Depending on tax systems, such an increase in value can trigger income taxes, but one can still get much richer due to changes not fully of your own making.
I fully accept that this is how a free market economy works but if there are excesses that sometimes can prompt intervention.
Last edited:
Coming back to software, there are some side effects of Apple keeping the prices on the higher side, some services or products require you to use separate payment and sign-up methods (eg, Netflix, Kindle e-books) as they cannot or don’t want to pay Apple’s fee. That does make the experience slightly less seamless.
Apple makes much less money on their Macs. Apple's business strategy has changed and for the last few years, services has been emphasised as an import form of revenue.
You’re right. Apple want 30% of however much more money Epic make on iOS, while Epic want only 100%.
Greedy Apple!
Last edited:
It’s perfectly reasonable for Apple to receive some ongoing compensation for at the very least reviewing new versions, hosting the downloads and payment processing. In regard to that, it’s a bit unfair to say they want more. It’s the question how much they deserve beyond that. It’s like when you own a piece of land, how much ‘rent’ do you deserve from those using the land. If that land is at Fifth Avenue, you might get quite a lot of rent.
Well, to be fair Epic is asking the court to void the contract (actually, sever certain terms I believe) as being against public policy and therefore illegal, and voidable. (Judges won’t won’t order a party to perform illegal contract terms. In California iirc there’s a large bias in favor of the judge minimally modifying the contract to make it legal, as opposed to voiding the entire contract.)
But is it illegal? As the record develops, Epic may be able to convince the judge that they have a sufficiently high likelihood of prevailing on the merits of their case (and other requirements that would be necessary) that the judge should grant the preliminary injunction Epic is seeking.
But it seems likely that Epic won’t be able to meet the bar by 28 September, and will not be able to force themselves back in the App Store. If Epic does ultimately win, damages can be calculated and Apple will have to pay up.
Well that’s my understanding anyway, IANAL.
Last edited:
Both companies can earn more money with almost zero cost to them when demand for software increases. That is the nature when you own something unique in some regard.
No, if the 70% of revenue that went to Epic was $600m, it means Apple has extracted over $257M. If Epic didn't like the contract, they shouldn't have signed up for it.
I entirely agree that there can be excesses in a free-market economy that can and should prompt intervention, but in the examples you cited, oilfields and land are both limited resources, and moreover resources that their owners did not create.
(And by the way, for all you people screaming “monopoly!” — you do realize that private ownership of land, or indeed of anything else, is a kind of monopoly, don’t you?)
It was never about the 30% commission, it was about keeping 100% by any means necessary. They said as much ion their emails that they want their own gaming App Store. Which would be conveniently located on the Apple App Store. A place where they can charge what they want and bypass Apples payments.
Crazier still, they wanted Apple to help them achieve this.
Even if Apple's commission was only 15%, I have no doubt that Epic would still have tried to circumvent the rules.
Last edited: