Apple is often sued, but it’s hard to remember a case when the company’s top officials participate in meetings. Typically, Apple manages to keep litigation behind the scenes and involve a maximum of middle-level employees, or generally only lawyers. However, the case against Epic Games, the developer of Fortnite, is a completely different matter. Apparently, the creators of the popular game intend to take revenge on Apple for removing Fortnite from the App Store and bring its management maximum inconvenience. How else to explain that Epic is calling not only Apple CEO Tim Cook but also its other top managers to court? And even Scott Forstall, who has long had nothing to do with the corporation.
The preliminary initial witness list sent to Apple by the US Oakland District Court mentions CEO Tim Cook, senior vice president of software development Craig Federighi and App Store Matt Fisher’s vice president. The list also includes former Apple CEO Scott Forstall and Phil Schiller, who was the company’s senior vice president of marketing until 2020.
However, Apple does not seem to be very annoying with this affairs’ alignment; company representatives told 9to5Mac.
Our executives look forward to sharing with the court the positive impact the App Store has had on innovation, the global economy, and user experience over the past 12 years. We are confident that this case will prove that Epic deliberately violated the agreement solely to increase its revenue, resulting in its removal from the App Store. In doing so, Epic bypassed the App Store’s security rules, which has led to less competition and has put the privacy and security of users’ data at great risk.
Epic Games also shared their statement regarding this:
The number of developers opposing Apple and its anti-competitive practices has grown. We are not alone in this struggle. We look forward to showing you how in-app distribution and payment processes affect competition.
Apple’s trial against Epic Games
This whole investigation began in August after Apple removed Fortnite from the App Store for trying to bypass the App Store’s own payment system and avoid a 30% commission.
The reason for filing a lawsuit against Apple, says Epic, was indeed the commission’s size that developers are forced to pay to Apple on each transaction. 30% is a lot considering Epic Games made $ 1.3 billion in Fortnite in-app purchases for iOS for all of 2020. Therefore, it was decided to start influencing the situation since no one else takes up this.
The proceedings are still ongoing, the interrogation of witnesses, including top managers of Apple, is to take place in May this year.
The developer also wants Tim Cook to sit for seven hours and answer all the game developer questions. Apple has not yet commented on this claim. We look forward to May to see what happens in court. But this trial will certainly become one of the most memorable in the company’s history.