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Apple says its entire App Store will be at risk if Epic Games is allowed to maintain operations in the store amid a controversial legal battle over its rules.
In its early court documents in response to Epic’s antitrust lawsuit, in which the popular game maker Fortnite disputes the 30 percent commission Apple takes on all app purchases, Apple called Epic’s legal argument “factual, economic and legal support.”
Epic sued Apple on August 13 after Fortnite was kicked from the App Store for bypassing Apple’s payment mechanism. Apple has also threatened to stop supporting Unreal Engine from Epic, a graphics platform used by millions of third-party developers.
Epic had requested an injunction that would prevent Apple from acting on the threat, but Apple said on Friday that such an injunction “would threaten the entire App Store ecosystem.”
This would “trigger a flood of additional requests for ’emergency’ help and threaten the entire App Store ecosystem, as developers see they can violate their agreements, jeopardize the security of the App Store and bypass payments to Apple, all without consequence, ”Apple argued in the filing.
The App Store is at the heart of Apple’s services unit, a $ 50 billion per year division that comes just behind the iPhone in revenue and grew 15% year-on-year. annual in the second quarter.
Apple said its terms and conditions “expressly state” that violations of its App Store rules will not be tolerated. “Developers who are working to cheat Apple, like Epic did here, are being fired,” he said.
While Epic claimed it would suffer “irreparable harm” if it could not access the developer tools hosted by Apple, the iPhone maker said that the alleged injury Epic suffered “could go away tomorrow if Epic was remedying its violation ”.
In a separate statement filed in court on Friday, Phil Schiller, director of the App Store, said that Epic only took action after Apple denied a request that would have granted it “special” exemptions. – a claim aimed at undermining Epic’s claim to fight. a principled battle on behalf of all developers.
Mr Schiller said that on June 30, Epic asked if they could offer an Epic Games Store app so that users can install apps from Epic directly without going through the App Store or Apple’s payment mechanism. . Apple refused and responded by saying that it had “never allowed this”.
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