Harm From Apple’s Retaliatory Actions ‘Immediate and Grave’: Epic

Epic Games asked U.S. District Judge Edward Chen in San Francisco Monday for a temporary restraining order (in Pacer) preventing Apple from “delisting” Fortnite games from the App Store or rendering gameplay useless on any iOS device. Epic sued Thursday to break Apple’s alleged “monopolies” in app distribution and in-app payment processing (see 2008130048). It added a direct-payment option to Fortnite, alleging Apple retaliated by removing the franchise from the App Store. The iPhone maker subsequently threatened to terminate Epic’s membership in the Apple developer program in two weeks and deprive it of developer tools if it didn’t remove the direct-payment option, said Epic. Apple didn’t comment Tuesday.