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Apple just kicked Fortnite off the App Store

(www.theverge.com)
1704 points ardit33 | 1 comments | 13 Aug 20 19:03 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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andreasley ◴[13 Aug 20 20:37 UTC] No.24148645[source]▶
Epic Games has filed a lawsuit [1] and published a Fortnite-themed parody of Apple's "1984" [2] to get some publicity for it.

[1] https://cdn2.unrealengine.com/apple-complaint-734589783.pdf

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=euiSHuaw6Q4

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coldcode ◴[13 Aug 20 20:51 UTC] No.24148908[source]▶
They will lose as the TOS clearly indicates the rules and Epic agreed to them. This is basic contract law. Apple has a massive team of experienced lawyers.
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bluedevil2k ◴[13 Aug 20 20:54 UTC] No.24148955[source]▶
TOS can't violate laws though. A contract that is in violation of the law isn't enforceable. Epic is looking for a judgement to make it illegal.
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the-pigeon ◴[13 Aug 20 21:07 UTC] No.24149191[source]▶
Expanding on this.

The idea that a large platform like iOS can only have apps loaded through a market place controlled by the hardware manufactured is clearly in violation of the spirit of anti-trust laws.

However there's no legal precedent on this because no one with deep enough pockets to fight Apple has been angry enough to do it yet.

Meaning this could be great news for everyone if this goes to court and Apple loses as they should.

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dpiers ◴[13 Aug 20 21:32 UTC] No.24149596[source]▶
I don't think that's true. Almost no one is complaining about Microsoft/Sony/Nintendo's "monopolies" on what software runs on their video game consoles.

The big differentiator is that phones have become the most frequently used personal computing device for many people, and we expect the freedom to use it how we want.

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1. hrktb ◴[13 Aug 20 21:50 UTC] No.24149868[source]▶
Relation between console makers and game studio is too different to directly trigger the same issues (Atlus wouldn’t sue Sony For instance).

But the situation being almost the same, a ruling in one would trigger a tidal wave in the other.

There was a fun moment in last year’s vergecast interview with a lawyer on the App store issue, also related to Epic I think. The case of console stores was brought to the conversation, and the lawyer bailed out of it pretty fast with a “there might be similarities but we need to look deeper before saying anything, let’s put that aside for now” kind of answer.