Epic Games’ tussles with Apple and Google continues. After infamously distributing their game without using the Play Store a while ago, Epic Games has now rustled the feathers of the smartphone duopoly yet again. This time, a new update to Fortnite added the ability to pay for in-game purchases via Epic Games’ own payment gateway — for cheaper than using the default ones.
Why exactly is this a problem? Using an external payment gateway other than Apple’s or Google’s is against both App stores’ app policies. When using the default gateways, the companies get 30% of each transaction. Epic has seemingly got tired of it and decided to add another option without telling anyone.
But soon enough, both app stores banned the game. This isn’t a huge problem for Android, as there are alternative app stores and users can install via APK files. iOS, on the other hand, has no other option (unless sideloaded via a jailbreak). Epic has also decided to sue both companies for anti-trust violations, we’ll see how that plays out in the coming days or weeks. They even released a video mocking Apple’s 1984 ad — but this time portraying Apple as the evil corporate oppressive regime.
Looking at the large picture, this exposes some hard-hitting and honestly unfair policies that both tech giants impose on App developers. These rules have had an impact on other projects as well, like Microsoft’s upcoming cloud gaming platform XCloud. Apple wants to review every aspect of the app (which in this case, would be all the games on the platform), and both Apple and Google want the in-app purchases within a game to run through their own gateways for that 30% cut (which isn’t really possible in game streaming). So, the service remains banned on iOS, while Samsung android devices can do in-app transactions in games — as the Galaxy App store allows for 3rd party payment gateways. The EU is taking a close look at this, which may end up in another anti-trust violation as well.
In summary, to make gaming accessible to more and more people, we believe that these ancient policies and rules from both Google and Apple need to be relaxed for specific scenarios like XCloud. Apple seems to be more stringent with the rules, as they don’t want services like XCloud disrupting their own subscription-based gaming service, Apple Arcade. While taking a cut for hosting a free game is okay, a large 30% cut of all in-app purchases is frankly too much. We sincerely hope that Fortnite, and the gaming industry as a whole, brings change for the better to mobile gaming.
Last modified: August 14, 2020
