Fortnite Creator Sues Apple and Google After Ban From App Stores

Apple’s and Google’s spats with app developers over their cut of revenues exploded into a high-stakes clash on Thursday when the tech giants kicked the wildly popular game Fortnite out of their app stores and the game’s maker hit back with lawsuits.

The fight began on Thursday morning with a clear provocation. Epic Games, the maker of Fortnite, started encouraging Fortnite’s mobile-app users to pay it directly, rather than through Apple or Google. The companies require that they handle all such app payments, so they can collect a 30 percent commission, a policy that has been at the center of antitrust complaints against the companies.

Hours later, Apple responded, removing the Fortnite app from its App Store.

“Epic enabled a feature in its app which was not reviewed or approved by Apple, and they did so with the express intent of violating the App Store guidelines,” Apple said in a statement. “We will make every effort to work with Epic to resolve these violations so they can return Fortnite to the App Store.”

Within an hour, Epic opened a multifront war against Apple that appeared months in the making.

First, it sued Apple in federal court, accusing the company of violating antitrust laws by forcing developers to use its payment systems.

“Apple’s removal of Fortnite is yet another example of Apple flexing its enormous power in order to impose unreasonable restraints and unlawfully maintain its 100% monopoly over the” market for in-app payments on iPhones, Epic said in its 62-page lawsuit.

Then Epic rolled out a sophisticated public-relations campaign that depicted Apple, one of the industry’s most image-conscious companies, as the stodgy old guard trying to stifle the upstart. To do so, it used Apple’s own imagery against it, mimicking Apple’s iconic “1984” ad from its own fight against IBM 36 years ago. This time, Fortnite characters were defying Apple’s totalitarian regime. Within hours, #FreeFortnite was the top trend on Twitter.