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Epic Games Squares Up to Apple as Fortnite Is Kicked Off App Store

The games maker accuses Apple of exploiting its iPhone hegemony to pocket 30 percent commission.

Can you hear the howl of outrage from kids across America? Epic Games, the maker of the phenomenally popular game Fortnite, has been kicked off Apple’s App Store after encouraging the game’s mobile users to pay it directly, thereby avoiding the company’s whopping commission of 30 percent. Apple mandates that it handle all app payments, a policy that has been at the center of antitrust complaints against them. Epic has hit back, suing Apple in federal court and rolling out a sophisticated PR campaign that depicted Apple as an establishment force seeking to stifle the upstart, which mimicked Apple’s iconic 1984 ad from its fight against IBM 36 years ago. #FreeFortnite swiftly became the top trend on Twitter. By making Fortnite unavailable on iPhones, Apple can starve Epic of revenue but risks massively denting the appeal of its devices to millions of Fortnite players just months ahead of the iPhone 12 launch.