Duncan Bell is appy go lucky

The Epic Games and Apple App Store spat is a return to the golden age of tech mud slinging

on’t you just love a good row? The world of tech used to be full of hurled accusations and expensive lawsuits, too. There was a period in the 2010s where Apple and Samsung seemed to spend their entire existences suing one another over patents, the shape of home keys and what have you.

Recent years, however, have seen the sad sight of tech behemoths getting on with each other, and even collaborating. It still slightly blows my mind, for instance, that Apple TV can now be found on actual TVs by the big Japanese and Korean brands. That would have seemed all but unthinkable a decade ago.

Hoorah and hooray, then, for Epic Games! The gaming jumbo brand behind Fortnite – a sort of Unreal Tournament with ‘sassy’ dancing – has brought back the good old days, by launching a furious spat with Apple and Google. Although mainly Apple, for some reason.

The row and brouhaha largely seems to be over money – vast, eye-watering sums of lovely money. Long story short, and hopefully I am not missing too many nuances with this headline view, Epic Games would like to keep more of the bazillions of dollars Fortnite rakes in, instead of having to give a large cut to Apple and Google – but, again, mainly Apple.

The way that the big app store is funded is something we are all very used to now, but I am pretty sure it will have come as surprise to many that Apple takes a cut of 30% from everything sold by Epic Games – and, presumably by everyone else as well. When you apply that to Fortnite’s profits of eleventy

Dthrillion dollars, that seems like quite a lot of money.

Epic Games has evidently become so unhappy about it that not only has it updated its in-app payment systems in a way designed to circumvent Apple’s cut, it has done so in a way deliberately designed to get it banned from the App Store – and the Google Play Store, although as I keep saying, people only seem bothered about the Apple part of the deal.

And not only has it done that, while girding its loins to spend some of its billions on getting very lawyered up indeed, Epic has even made an advert mocking Apple. Yes, it is a full-on diss war!

The seething thrust of Epic’s attack is that Apple used to be ‘the little guy’ taking on vested interests when it made its famous ‘1984’ ad, which Epic’s own ad mirrors/mocks.

So multi-billion-dollar gaming giant Epic is clearly saying it is now the little guy, taking on Evil Apple. Which you’d have to say is just a tad rich. Springing to Epic’s defence is Spotify, which again is not a company you’d describe as a plucky little fella struggling to make its way in the world.

The unusual thing about this epic conflict is you can sympathise with everyone’s position, without really having too much sympathy for any of them.

Naturally, Epic would like to pay less to the app stores. Of course, Apple and Google think the arrangements they have in place are fair, and that their app stores have been major contributors to the success of Fortnite, Spotify et al. Apple in particular does have a very strong position, as it is essentially impossible to get any software onto an iPhone without going through the App Store.

None of this is very edifying, unless you are a lawyer. Large amounts of cash will be flung around to decide who is being more unfair, unreasonable or illegal in their dealings, and it is entirely possible that all that’ll result is a bloody stalemate, and some upset Fortnite fans.

It’s quite hard to root for a massive brand that makes much of its cash by selling virtual hats for imaginary characters to wear. But it’s also pretty hard to root for a massive brand that takes a flat 30% of the profits of the other massive brand – and from lots of other apps of varying levels of success.

So all that’s left is to enjoy the fight. Because I do love a good row.

“The brouhaha largely seems to be over money – vast, eye-watering sums of lovely money”