{"id":117073,"date":"2020-08-21T15:20:00","date_gmt":"2020-08-21T15:20:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gamasutra.com\/view\/news\/368685"},"modified":"2020-08-21T15:20:00","modified_gmt":"2020-08-21T15:20:00","slug":"epic-is-hosting-a-fortnite-tournament-themed-around-its-legal-battle-with-apple","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/2020\/08\/21\/epic-is-hosting-a-fortnite-tournament-themed-around-its-legal-battle-with-apple\/","title":{"rendered":"Epic is hosting a Fortnite tournament themed around its legal battle with Apple"},"content":{"rendered":"

Epic is still using Fortnite<\/em> as a vehicle to antagonize Apple as the two companies enter an (Epic initiated) legal battle over what does and doesn\u2019t constitute anti-competitive behavior on closed platforms.<\/p>\n

This latest jab at the now $2 trillion company<\/a> takes the form of an in-game tournament: the #FreeFortnite Cup<\/a>, complete with Apple-inspired rewards like the Tart Tycoon skin or a real-world #FreeFortnite hat.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese are the final days of the entire Fortnite<\/em> community\u2019s ability to play together. Apple has blocked Fortnite<\/em> from the App Store, preventing players from updating to new versions,\u201d reads Epic\u2019s simplified take on the issue. \u201cPlayers on iOS devices will be left behind on Chapter 2 – Season 3 while everyone else jumps into the Chapter 2 – Season 4 launch on August 27.\u201d<\/p>\n

You\u2019ll want to check out our past coverage on the debacle for the full story, but in short Apple\u2019s decision to delist Fortnite<\/em> followed an update from Epic that added in an unsanctioned payment method<\/a> to Fortnite<\/em>, thus breaking Apple\u2019s App Store Guidelines and triggering Fortnite<\/em>\u2019s removal<\/a> and the impending removal of Epic\u2019s entire dev account<\/a>. Epic first did so as a challenge to (and way to dodge) Apple\u2019s standard 30 percent cut of all App Store-generated income, and was swiftly met with a delisting only hours later. <\/p>\n

Epic had a lawsuit against Apple<\/a> ready and waiting for that delisting however, and the two are now wrapped in a legal back and forth<\/a> that sees Epic accusing Apple of anti-competitive behavior for the tight grip it uses to keep App Store competitors and other payment methods off of the iOS platform.<\/p>\n

(There\u2019s a similar lawsuit going with Google<\/a> right now, but the semi-open nature of Google\u2019s platform means Fortnite<\/em> can exist outside of the Google Play ecosystem so it\u2019s ultimately received less fanfare than the Apple lawsuit.)<\/p>\n

This Apple-themed in-game tournament reads like another attempt to weaponize Fortnite<\/em>\u2019s massive userbase against Apple over the delisting, following only a week after Epic did something similar by broadcasting a call to action against Apple<\/a> on Fortnite<\/em>\u2019s in-game theater screen.<\/p>\n

Closing out the blog post, which can be read in full here<\/a>, Epic suggests iOS-favoring Fortnite<\/em> users start looking into alternative platforms ahead of the next Fortnite<\/em> update, and urges iOS users upset about losing access to Fortnite<\/em> to \u201cmake your voice heard by messaging @AppStore on social with #FreeFortnite.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Epic is still using Fortnite as a vehicle to antagonize Apple as the two companies enter an (Epic initiated) legal battle over what does and doesn\u2019t constitute anti-competitive behavior on closed platforms. This latest jab at the now $2 trillion company takes the form of an in-game tournament: the #FreeFortnite Cup, complete with Apple-inspired rewards […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":117074,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-117073","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117073","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=117073"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117073\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/117074"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=117073"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=117073"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=117073"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}