Microsoft has joined the court battle between Apple and Epic Games, filing a legal brief supporting the Fortnite developer’s right to carry on developing software for Mac and iOS while the case continues.
The submission, signed by Kevin Gammill, the executive in charge of supporting developers on Microsoft’s Xbox console, is further evidence that the lawsuit over in-app purchases in Fortnite is set to become a proxy war over the future of the App Store.
“Epic Games’ Unreal Engine is critical technology for numerous game creators including Microsoft,” Gammill wrote. “Apple’s discontinuation of Epic’s ability to develop and support Unreal Engine for iOS or macOS will harm game creators and gamers.”
After Epic introduced its own payment service in the iOS version of Fortnite, Apple removed the app from the store and told Epic it would revoke the company’s ability to develop for Apple platforms by the end of August if it did not relent.
What is Fortnite: Battle Royale
In short, it's a mass online brawl where 100 players leap out of a flying bus on to a small island and then fight until only one is left. Hidden around are weapons and traps, and players must arm themselves while exploring.
When was it released?
Fortnite started in July 2017 as a four-player cooperative survival game, but the game's developer, Epic, noticed the huge success of PC title PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds (PUBG), which pits 100 players against each other, and decided to release a new version.
How much does it cost?
The game is free and players are able to unlock new items as they progress without paying anything. A Premium Battle Pass gives access to exclusive clothing and items. However there is an in-game currency, V-Bucks, which players can use to buy additional custom gear. It is how this currency is paid for that has become the centre of a dispute between Fortnite's makers and Apple and Google.
Why is it so popular with kids?
It's free, it's fun, and it has a very silly, offbeat sense of humour. While PUBG has a serious, realistic visual style, Fortnite: Battle Royale has very bright, almost cartoon-like graphics, as well as loads of ridiculous items and costumes, such as space suits and dinosaur outfits. Players can pull a variety of dance moves, and team up with a friend to compete as a duo or a squad. Participants can chat as they play using headsets and microphones.
Is there violence? And is it addictive?
Although Fortnite is a multiplayer shooter, it does not depict bloody violence. It takes lots of enjoyable gameplay concepts from more mature shooting games but places them in a non-threatening, non-realistic world. In terms of addictiveness, Fortnite contains nothing that makes it different from other action video games. It's more that the game contains many different elements – nice visuals, good shooting mechanics, an interesting building component and lots of support and interest from YouTubers – into one package that is free to download.
In the latest round of legal submissions, Epic, with Microsoft’s support, is asking a judge to block that “retaliation”, calling it “an unlawful effort to maintain [Apple’s] monopoly and chill any action by others who might dare oppose Apple”.
In a filing on Friday, Apple called the situation an “‘emergency’… entirely of Epic’s own making”. It said: “All of the injury Epic claims to itself, game players and developers could have been avoided if Epic filed its lawsuit without breaching its agreements.”
Microsoft has been increasingly public in its opposition of Apple’s firm control of the App Store. In early August Apple blocked Microsoft’s xCloud streaming service, citing rules against cloud gaming.
“[Apple] consistently treats gaming apps differently,” Microsoft complained, “applying more lenient rules to non-gaming apps even when they include interactive content.”
In June Microsoft’s president, Brad Smith, criticised the 30% cut that app stores take from developers, arguing that the policy was a far higher burden on fair competition than Microsoft’s own practices in the 90s and early 2000s that led to an antitrust case. Although Smith did not mention Apple by name, his comments were the beginning of a cooling of relations between the two companies.
At the weekend Apple apologised to another developer, Automattic, makers of the WordPress blogging platform, for wrongly demanding it introduce in-app purchases in order to allow a bug fix for the WordPress iOS app.
“We have informed the developer and apologise for any confusion that we have caused,” Apple said in a statement.
