App store dispute with Apple: Epic Games submits a lawyer bill

After Epic Games has achieved an intermediate victory with Apple for the opening of the App Store in the long time, CEO Tim Sweeney chats out of the sewing box, which has been invested in the process so far. Compared to the US economic side of Business Insider, the “Fortnite” boss announced that the lawyers and court costs of the conflict that has been going on since 2020 have so far been $ 100 million.

SWEENEY: “It was worth it”

But it did not remain: leaving the App Store had made the games of Epic Games significantly less sales. SWEENEY estimates that the total amount that the legal dispute has so far cost “with all the extras” is over a billion dollars. Sales at “Fortnite” alone in two years in the App Store are said to have been $ 300 million. However, the game was still comparatively new at that time and stood in the middle of the hype of the gamer scene.

Despite the enormous costs – which Epic Games would prefer to get back from Apple, if this is legally possible – SWEENEY believes that the legal dispute was “totally rewarded”. The investors therefore remained largely. “They believe in our vision and our potential.” Finally, one wants to develop “the metaverse building” and “Fortnite” from a game to an open platform with billions of players. Apple tries to control the “sales tap” to extract “all profits”. The Epic Games investors would know that, which is why they support the fight.

Epic’s own app store cheaper than Apple

SWEENEY emphasized that Epic Games helps with his approach to other developers and then also benefit from the fact that they were successful. “Epic is one of the few companies in the industry that is positioned in such a way that we really have to fight for everyone. And I don’t have a guilty conscience with me.”

In fact, the company tries to implement its own app store under iOS. In the EU there is a separate Epic Games Store with at least around 30 million installations in the latest count and the game group has now also implemented a web shopping option for developers after the partial victory in the USA. In addition, they can use the platform free of less than one million dollars in sales per year, and there is a 12 percent commission above this amount. Apple wants to do 15 percent for less than one million dollar sales, later 30 percent.