Epic battle
Epic Games says that Fortnite players will be stranded on iPhones if Apple disables the game as it has threatened to do as part of an escalating legal battle between the two companies. On Monday, Epic filed an injunction to prevent Apple from kicking the developer off the App Store.
TechCrunch summed up the dispute: “Epic ran afoul of both Apple and Google’s policies last week when it added a discounted direct payment option into its apps, essentially creating a workaround for Fortnite players to make purchases in the game without an intermediary.”
Ben Thompson's tech blog Stratechery provides a thorough retelling of the history of Apple’s App Store, which shows why this case is so consequential. “[Epic] doesn’t just want a direct relationship with customers, and it doesn’t just want to use its own payment processor; it is also demanding the right to run its own App Store,” Stratechery writes.
Ad Age’s Creativity editor Ann-Christine Diaz caught up with a surprising star in this twisted courtroom drama: Ridley Scott. Epic made a parody of Scott’s epic “1984” Super Bowl ad, in this version, casting Apple as Big Brother. The Hollywood director was not impressed: “It would have been energy better spent if there was genuine social purpose,” Scott told Ad Age.