Epic Games' popular game "Fortnite" was suddenly removed from the App Store and Google Play. The direct reason for this is that the app introduced its own billing system and violated the rules, but Epic Games took such action due to deep-rooted dissatisfaction with the app store fee and the store side. There is a change in the power relationship with app developers. Can we find a way to solve the problem?
Fortnite is a battle royal type TPS (third-person shooter), but it is popular for its characteristic gameplay with sandbox-like elements such as building buildings. It is known as a popular online game with more than 350 million players, causing a boom that has become a social phenomenon mainly in Europe and the United States. It became a big topic.
Fortnite is also popular on smartphones. With more than 350 million players, Fortnite has recently been attracting attention as an entertainment platform, such as streaming live performances and movies on the game. Big trouble is happening. That is, Fortnite suddenly disappeared from the smartphone app stores App Store and Google Play on August 14, 2020.The reason is the billing system. Billing for games distributed on the App Store and Google Play is stipulated to go through the payment system of each store, but Epic Games deliberately ignores it and has its own payment method "Epic direct payment" in the app. ” is prepared. If you purchase the currency "V-Bucks" that can be used in Fortnite via that, you will get a maximum discount of 20%.
Of course, this measure is a violation of the terms of the store, so both stores immediately deleted Fortnite. However, it seems that this was intentionally set up by Epic Games.
In fact, when Fortnite was removed from the app store, the company immediately filed a lawsuit against Apple. In addition, this measure was taken after careful preparation, such as distributing a parody of a TV commercial based on the science fiction novel "1984" that Apple once aired and deploying a "#FreeFortnite" campaign to appeal to players for support. You can see how it came to be.
Video released after the Fortnite app was removed. It is a parody of a former Apple TV commercial, criticizing the company and appealing to players for support. This is because the company has complained more strongly about the store's fees than before.The App Store and Google Play require digital content to use the payment system prepared by the store for in-app payments, and basically pays 30% of sales to the store as a commission. It has become. There have been many complaints from app developers that this fee is "high", but there was almost no movement on the store side to consider a review.
Epic Games had a strong distrust of the store's attitude. In fact, the Android version of Fortnite has not been distributed on Google Play for a long time, avoiding Google Play's fees by distributing the app independently on the Epic Games website. After that, due to security issues, Fortnite was also distributed on Google Play in April 2020, but the attitude of dissatisfaction with fees remained unchanged.
The Fortnite Android app is also available on the Epic Games website, but it is treated as a so-called "stray app" and security needs to be relaxed to install it. It seems the company was most frustrated with the App Store and, by extension, Apple. The main reason for this is that iOS devices, such as the iPhone, are practically limited to the App Store where you can obtain apps, and unlike Android, apps cannot be distributed outside the store, so there is no way to avoid the problem of fees. Will.
Therefore, Epic Games dared to introduce its own billing system in violation of the store's rules, and by setting Apple, which has less freedom in the store, as a clear "enemy", the fee problem was solved by the user. I decided to take the “game” to make it widely known.
Therefore, the target Apple also immediately took countermeasures, and on August 18, 2020, Epic Games announced the deletion of the developer account. Epic Games is the developer of the game engine "Unreal Engine" used by many game apps, and if the account is deleted, the development of the iOS version of Unreal Engine will not be able to continue, and other game companies will be affected. There is also the possibility that it will reach
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