Last week Epic Games sued Apple for removing its game, Fortnite, from the App Store, and Epic positioned things as an unfair slight against its company from an unjust leader who takes no pity on its subjects. But emails between the two reveal that Epic Games had some pretty unreasonable requests.
A new report from The Verge points highlights exchanges between the two companies. The emails, which Apple released for its part in response to Epic Games, suggest that Epic didn’t just want to lower the App Store fee. It wanted to be given special treatment.
Epic Games emails to Apple suggest Epic wanted quite a lot
Based on Apple’s emails, Epic didn’t just want to lower the App Store fee for in-game transactions that took place in Fortnite.
It wanted to avoid the fee entirely, and get the Epic Games Store app placed in the App Store. This could allow Epic to not only skirt the fees for Fortnite, but any future games. Should any be released on iOS down the line.
Which would go against Apple’s guidelines for apps and games on the store front. Comments from Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney note that consumers would “have the opportunity to pay less for digital products” if Apple allowed the changes it was asking for.
He further goes on to say that it’s his hope that Apple would afford these opportunities to all developers. To promote a fair and equal platform that is as open and competitive as it is on PC.
Email exchanges began taking place as early as June 30
Discussions about this whole situation and the requests that Epic was asking for started a lot earlier than most people probably think.
None of this just happened overnight. Email exchanges actually started as early as June 30. Where the requests were made. Discussions then continued until August 13, where Sweeney stated Epic Games would “no longer adhere to Apple’s payment processing restrictions.”
What’s clear is that Epic had a vision for what would potentially happen if requests weren’t granted. This led to the decision to circumvent Apple’s payment processing fees. Which led to Apple’s removal of Fortnite from the App Store, followed by Google’s removal of the game from the Play Store.
Epic has since taken other measures to put a spotlight on the situation. Like asking gamers to join the #FreeFortnite revolution. As well as take place in an upcoming tournament that includes hardware prizes where Fortnite is still available to play.