Epic v. Plan to avoid Apple and the “Baddies look”.
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“You will enjoy it the coming fireworks show, “Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney wrote to Microsoft’s Xbox CEO Phil Spencer on August 7, 2020, just days before Epic launch publicly The Liberty Project, the main plan for dismantling this $ 91 billion as we know the mobile gaming market. Sweeney wanted to break a little iron in Apple and Google’s mobile app stores and pave the way for a more open market, and Microsoft wanted to help.
The Liberty project is underway as it is the first week of Epic antitrust trial It’s over against Apple. Sweeney’s crusade against Apple isn’t very much about David and Goliath: it’s a fight between two billion-dollar tech companies, after all. Still, Epic’s strategy to win friends (equivalent to companies like Sony, Microsoft, and Samsung) and influence people (the general public) seems to be making money so far.
The internal workings of Epic’s long-standing plan to present it as a knight in the game in shining armor are public thanks to court records. Epic has been laying the groundwork for Project Liberty since 2018. Goal? As Chief Operating Officer Daniel Vogel explains in an 2020 email to Epic executives: Get people to activate Apple (and Google) “without looking like the bad guys”.
Last August, Epic started first stage: collecting children. Epic, which publishes a successful game Fortnite, decided to sell the discounted V-bucks, the currency of its game, but only through the system paid directly by Epic, including the phone. The move was to provoke Apple, which requires mobile developers to use its payment system and pay a 30 percent commission. Epic took issue with this 30 percent reduction because Apple was using monopoly power over this ecosystem and its 30 percent reduction was a monopoly tax paid by consumers.
“Our message is to pass on price savings to players,” Vogel wrote in the same email.
Shoot. The Chaser was a clean slate of propaganda against Apple. “Nineteen Eighty-Fortnite – #FreeFortnite“. On the July 2020 Project Liberty pitch on Epic’s board, Epic stated that Fortnite in May of that year it had 81.2 million active users per month. Potentially a small army. While not many would agree with what Apple had argued about App Store commissions, the cheap V-dollars were easily collected. Apple was launched Fortnite from its platform. The kids were crazy. #FreeFortnite trend.
After this progress, Epic filed a lawsuit Against Apple, they complain that Apple’s control of the iOS market is “senseless and illegal” – a “two-of-a-kind” blow to Project Liberty. (Epic has also been sued by Google for similar charges; that trial date has yet to be determined.) It’s an easy thought for Epic: Apple controls iPhones. Apple controls its operating system, iOS mobile. And Apple controls the App Store, the only way to distribute apps and games on iOS mobile. Epic designed a “fireworks show” to prove they couldn’t distribute Fortnite or sell V-bucks via iPhones through anything other than the App Store.
When Epic filed the complaint last August, his charges came as no surprise to Sally Hubbard, director of the Open Markets Institute’s antitrust think tank strategy. “I thought for a long time that Apple had monopoly power in the App Store,” he says. U.S. law defines monopolies based on their ability to control prices and exclude competition. “So when Apple unilaterally sets a 30 percent commission,” he says, “that’s direct proof of the power of the monopoly, because that’s the power to control prices.” The question is not whether Apple provides high-quality services to consumers, he says; their consumers will not switch to Android, Xbox or PlayStation to avoid App Store prices.
At trial, Apple says Epic violated the contract in an effort to make more money, and that Apple deserves a 30 percent commission because it developed and maintained the app store. However, Apple’s practices have greater scrutiny around the world. At the end of last month, the European Union accused Apple of violating antitrust regulations related to a 2019 complaint from Spotify.
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