Today a U.S. District Court judge ruled in favor of Epic Games in favor of its lawsuit against Apple. As a result, Apple can no longer dictate that purchases made in apps on its own devices go through the App Store. Previously, Apple had raised 30% of revenue from purchases made at Epic Games Fortnite.
In 2020, Apple eliminated Fortnite from the iOS store after Epic offered its users a discount on V-Bucks if they bought them outside the App Store. Epic made this move in response to Apple collecting 30% of the profits from V-Buck purchases on Apple devices. He Fortnite The developer launched a public campaign with the hashtag #FreeFortnite which defined Apple’s practice as unreasonable. Epic then filed a lawsuit against Apple in August 2020.
The following is the relevant section of the court ruling handed down by Judge Yvonne Gonzalez-Rogers:
The Court, having considered the evidence presented in the banking trial in this case and consistent with the findings of fact and the findings of law, ORDER:
1. Apple Inc. and its officials, agents, servers, employees, and anyone in concert or active participation with them (“Apple”) are permanently restricted and prohibited from including (i) developers in their applications and metadata buttons , external links or other calls to action that direct customers to purchasing mechanisms, in addition to in-app purchasing and (ii) communication with customers through contact points voluntarily obtained from customers through the account registration in the application.
What does it mean? By 2022, Apple can no longer require online purchases made in games or apps on Apple devices to go through its own App Store. It should allow developers to redirect users to their own markets for online shopping. The lawsuit will go into effect Dec. 9 unless it is designated for a higher court, according to the document Virgin.
Tim Sweeney, CEO of Epic Games, tweeted about the response to the court ruling, stating:
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This decision has potentially important implications for other online storefronts like Google, against which Epic also filed a lawsuit in July this year. With Epic Games, you can now redirect users who play on Apple devices to their own sites to shop online thanks to this demand, there could be precedents for developers to be able to do so in other storefronts as well.
Kotaku contacted Epic and Apple to comment. Epic directed us to Tim Sweeney’s tweet, above. Apple did not respond at press time.