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Why the Battle Between Epic and Apple Won’t End Anytime Soon
The App Store has its problems, but it’s still all we’ve got
On Wednesdays, I gather together a ragtag band of thirtysomethings who work in corporate IT, and together we parachute onto a virtual island and proceed to have rings run around us by seven-year-olds who shoot us in the head and do funny dances as we crawl around helplessly. It is simultaneously entertaining and humbling. With Fortnite launching a new season in partnership with Marvel, the seven-year-olds have new ways of killing us: Iron Man’s repulsor, Thor’s Hammer, and Wolverine’s claws, among others. It says something about the modern world, I realize while running around as Thor, that I can’t work out whether Marvel paid Epic to insert product placement into Fortnite, or Epic paid Marvel to license its IP. There’s some sort of deal there, but it’s not obvious which way the money flows. Maybe I’ve become old and jaded, but the crossover feels like a corporate arrangement, leaving me more interested in the deal than the playable characters.
I also find myself wondering about the behind-the-scenes shenanigans. Did Epic Games, the creator of Fortnite, tell Marvel they were going to provoke Apple and Google into removing Fornite from their app stores just as their characters appeared, and were planning to respond with legal proceedings? Did they make it clear that as a result, the Marvel characters wouldn’t be available on iPhones and Android devices?
In case you haven’t been following along, this battle began when Epic added a feature to the iOS app that allowed you to buy in-game currency outside of Apple’s purchasing system. This is against Apple’s terms and conditions and after warning Epic, Apple removed the app from the App Store. Epic immediately released Nineteen Eighty-Four-style video, parodying a famous Apple commercial from 1984. The original Apple ad, directed by Ridley Scott, was influenced by the George Orwell novel (strongly enough that Orwell’s estate sent a cease-and-desist letter to Apple for copyright infringement.) In Fortnite’s retelling, Epic is the revolutionary, and Apple is the evil incumbent.
Epic is not seeking damages. It is seeking the right to launch its own competing…
