Aero
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Apple Dramatically Escalates Its War With ‘Fortnite’ Developer Epic Games
After removing Fortnite from the App Store for allowing players to make purchases direct from developer Epic Games, Apple has now escalated its fight by threatening to remove Epic Games from its develoer program entirely.
www.forbes.com
I've been wondering if anyone has been following this story. Epic Games is a big deal in the video game industry, but this story specifically revolves around the game "Fortnite". Basically Epic Games implemented its own payment system into Fortnite, which circumvents the Google, and Apple payment systems. Now in response to Epic implementing this payment system, Google and Apple removed them completely.
In essence, Google and Apple would rather get no money from Fortnite, then have to lose some of the 30% or whatever cut they take. I'm not really sure of all the details, I haven't dug that deep yet. Plus this story is just unfolding. In any case, it's clear the actions from Google and Apple scream of anti-competitive behavior. Now I'm not an anti-trust law expert or anything, but it seems like Epic Games has a case.
Keep in mind that Google + Apple payment systems cover everything from Music and movies, to every kind of app that exists. Moreover, the reason these companies have grown so much is because of their anti-competition policies. Of course, it might be fair to say that anti-competition is common behavior on the internet. The internet may be the wild west as far as anti-trust law goes.
The conclusion is if you care at all about the "free market" you should pay attention to this story. There is a good reason anti-trust laws exist. It's to protect us, consumers, from a grand total of 2 corporations telling us everything we are allowed to watch, play, and listen to.