Apple blocks Epic’s app store update after Fortnite fee clash.

Apple further escalated its fight with Epic Games, filing a lawsuit to stop the game-maker from using their Fortnite payment system.

According to a filing Tuesday in federal court in Oakland, California, Apple is seeking monetary damages to compensate for its fee loss.

Epic fired the first shot in this dispute, and it can not be left unchecked for his willful, bold, and unlawful conduct,” Apple said.

Epic launched a payment system last month that circumvented the Apple App Store, so the iPhone maker wasn’t getting a cut in Fortnite purchases.

Apple then stopped new users from downloading Fortnite to its platform, but existing Fortnite copies may still be using the Epic system.

On August 13, Epic sued Apple, claiming the removal from the App Store of the Fortnite app is a “retaliation” for the game maker’s decision to offer in-app purchases through its marketplace.

Epic was denied a court order which temporarily would have stopped Apple from delisting Fortnite.

Epic declined to comment on Apple’s filing while repeating its position that it attempts to compete in a fair marketplace by offering a direct payment option to Fortnite players and passing on the savings to them.

The case forms into a major antitrust battle over tolls of as much as 30 per cent that developers are charged by Apple when users make in-app purchases.

Epic has filed a separate suit against Google, with similar claims.
While Epic portrays itself as a modern Robin Hood corporation, it is, in reality, a multi-billion dollar enterprise that wants to pay nothing for the considerable value it gains from the App Store,” Apple said in its filing.

Apple said Epic’s actions hurt its business and relation with the customer “Epic’s behaviour interfered with Apple’s relationships with its consumers, especially those who made purchases through Epic’s unauthorized purchasing mechanism, by depriving Apple of the economic benefit it reasonably expected from those relationships,” the filing said.

Contradicting the claim by Epic that the App Store is anti-competitive, Apple has said that it provides a service and helps developers to make money. More than $116 billion in sales of nearly $140 billion in the year 2019 App Store “went entirely into the back pockets of app developers,” Apple said.