Apple fires back in Epic Games 'Fortnite' saga, seeks damages for breach of contract
Apple filed counterclaims and responses on Tuesday in its legal battle with Epic Games, and is seeking damages for the "Fortnite" maker's alleged breach of contract.

Credit: Apple
The latest legal volley, filed Tuesday in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, continues an ongoing saga between the two companies that began in August. On Aug. 13, Epic Games baited Apple into removing "Fortnite" from the App Store and filed a prepared lawsuit shortly thereafter.
In its court filing Tuesday, Apple said that the Epic lawsuit is "nothing more than a basic disagreement over money." The Epic Games suit alleges anti-competitive behavior on the App Store and protests Apple's cut of in-app purchases.
"Although Epic portrays itself as a modern corporate Robin Hood, in reality it is a multi-billion dollar enterprise that simply wants to pay nothing for the tremendous value it derives from the App Store," Apple wrote in the counterclaim.
Furthermore, Apple believes that it should be awarded compensatory and other damages as a result of the entire debacle.
"Epic fired the first shot in this dispute, and its willful, brazen, and unlawful conduct cannot be left unchecked. Neither Mr. Sweeney's self-righteous (and self-interested) demands nor the scale of Epic's business can justify Epic's deliberate contractual breaches, its tortious conduct, or its unfair business practices," Apple wrote. "This Court should hold Epic to its contractual promises, award Apple compensatory and punitive damages, and enjoin Epic from engaging in further unfair business practices."
Apple's dustup with Epic started when the game company implemented a direct payment system into "Fortnite" that bypassed the 30% commission on App Store and in-app purchases. Apple then pulled "Fortnite" from the App Store as it was directly violating the company's developer guidelines -- a move that Epic was apparently anticipating.
Unbeknownst to Apple, Epic had been busy enlisting a legion of lawyers, publicists, and technicians to orchestrate a sneak assault on the App Store," Apple said of the implementation of the direct payment system.
The move appeared to be a strategic on Epic's part, as the company quickly launched an anti-Apple campaign along the lawsuit. Although Epic Games has denied wanting a special deal for "Fortnite," email correspondence between Apple and Epic Games executives suggest otherwise.
In the counterclaim, Apple adds that Epic Games has earned more than $600 million from the App Store. It also asks the court to hold Epic liable for breach of contract and other counts. It also seeks restitution of the revenue that "Fortnite" made through its direct payment system and a permanent injunction banning that payment system across all of Epic's apps on the App Store.

Credit: Apple
The latest legal volley, filed Tuesday in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, continues an ongoing saga between the two companies that began in August. On Aug. 13, Epic Games baited Apple into removing "Fortnite" from the App Store and filed a prepared lawsuit shortly thereafter.
In its court filing Tuesday, Apple said that the Epic lawsuit is "nothing more than a basic disagreement over money." The Epic Games suit alleges anti-competitive behavior on the App Store and protests Apple's cut of in-app purchases.
"Although Epic portrays itself as a modern corporate Robin Hood, in reality it is a multi-billion dollar enterprise that simply wants to pay nothing for the tremendous value it derives from the App Store," Apple wrote in the counterclaim.
Furthermore, Apple believes that it should be awarded compensatory and other damages as a result of the entire debacle.
"Epic fired the first shot in this dispute, and its willful, brazen, and unlawful conduct cannot be left unchecked. Neither Mr. Sweeney's self-righteous (and self-interested) demands nor the scale of Epic's business can justify Epic's deliberate contractual breaches, its tortious conduct, or its unfair business practices," Apple wrote. "This Court should hold Epic to its contractual promises, award Apple compensatory and punitive damages, and enjoin Epic from engaging in further unfair business practices."
Apple's dustup with Epic started when the game company implemented a direct payment system into "Fortnite" that bypassed the 30% commission on App Store and in-app purchases. Apple then pulled "Fortnite" from the App Store as it was directly violating the company's developer guidelines -- a move that Epic was apparently anticipating.
Unbeknownst to Apple, Epic had been busy enlisting a legion of lawyers, publicists, and technicians to orchestrate a sneak assault on the App Store," Apple said of the implementation of the direct payment system.
The move appeared to be a strategic on Epic's part, as the company quickly launched an anti-Apple campaign along the lawsuit. Although Epic Games has denied wanting a special deal for "Fortnite," email correspondence between Apple and Epic Games executives suggest otherwise.
In the counterclaim, Apple adds that Epic Games has earned more than $600 million from the App Store. It also asks the court to hold Epic liable for breach of contract and other counts. It also seeks restitution of the revenue that "Fortnite" made through its direct payment system and a permanent injunction banning that payment system across all of Epic's apps on the App Store.
Epic Versus Apple - Apple's Counterclaim by Mike Wuerthele on Scribd
Comments
Apple has informed Epic that it will deny a reapplication (by Epic) for at least a year. So at this point, Epic doesn't have the option to just undo the hotfix and make Fortnite compliant.
Having said that, there may be aspects to the developer agreements that also stipulate that certain actions may lead to a permanent barring.
I don't play games, but Epic is big an popular so it makes sense to have them back in the fold once their tale is tucked deeply between their legs.
The stupidity of Epic's action/claim is boggling to me...
Mr. Sweeney, you may guess now, who needs to open wide his wallet and pay for his stupidity. Next time you should think twice before you start telling lies.
My question remains: can Apple stop a third-party software developer from using the App Store if it simply doesn’t like the developer? Similarly, could Walmart refuse to sell Samsung products just because they don’t like Samsung?
I agree that Apple is likely to let them back in, but my question is a legal question about whether they would be forced to let them back in.
#KickSweeney_FreeFortnite
Using Epic's logic should Proctor and Gamble demand Costco carry their many products but NOT take a cut because you could pick up a package of TidePods and pay over the air with your phone to P&Gs online store and skip the line? I'd say the premise is absurd. This gets back to Epic's core argument that the AppStore is a monopoly and the government should force Apple to carry anyone's product for free. It's an argument that I didn't agree with when first advanced and the more this unfolds, the more vacuous it seems.
I'm definitely not a lawyer, and I've seen over and over that my attempts to understand law based on what I imagine is "common sense" tend to fail spectacularly, so maybe I'm totally wrong here. But it sure seems to me that Epic is fighting the wrong battle here. I think they need the law to change in order to get what they want, because I don't see how they win this under current law (but again -- I ain't no lawyer).
In this recent motion for perlimanry injunction, one of the things Epic is asking the court to order Apple do is to effectively reinstate Epic's ('84) developer account. That is a separate ask from ordering Apple to allow Fortnite back on the App Store even while it isn't complaint. The court could, but hasn't yet, order Apple to reinstate that account even if the court doesn't order Apple to allow Fortnite back with the alternate payment method. So Apple could effectively be ordered to allow Fortnite back on the App Store if it is made compliant.
As indicated, the court could order Apple to do what you asked about. But it hasn't yet done so. So Apple isn't required to do that.
As for your more general question: It might depend on the circumstances, but generally speaking yes. Apple could do what it wanted unless and until a court told it that it couldn't.
If a company had an employee that was bad-mouthing them on social media, the company would certainly be allowed to fire that employee. This sort of thing happens all the time. Freedom of speech in the US applies only to US state and federal governments restricting the free speech of others. Keeping critics like Epic off Apple's store would be akin to firing them, and perfectly legal. And, on a scale of 1 to 10, I would rate Epic's egregiousness at around 5. This isn't a 10 out of 10 on the evil scale. What Epic did was no secret and it wasn't theft, so I'm only calling it a 5, and barely that. But you can fire someone for anything above a 0.
The CEO of Facebook has been criticizing Apple lately. In my books, Apple should be allowed to ban Facebook's apps for that reason. I remember Jobs once saying, "That's not our style." I think that's very noble and magnanimous of Apple to let critics generally stay on their app store. Apple's reputation is golden as far as I'm concerned here. Actually, the fact that Apple is launching a counter suit against Epic proves that even their magnanimity has its limits.
Apple doesn't hold grudges, and I'm glad you don't, because I think I disagreed with you a few days ago on something. You should be allowed to ignore me or fire me because we disagreed, but you are being magnanimous, like Apple tends to be.
The App Store is NOT just another business, Even Walmart and Costco have far more competitors than does the App Store. The app store is the ONLY choice for people with iPhones. The only quasi alternative here would be an Android App Store. Are those very similar choices ? Practically every Apple lover here would argue “no, the Apple experience is far superior”. This is much different than being able to buy the very same identical TV at a large number of different retailers, as some have suggested.
The ultimate goal of capitalism is to become so successful, as to destroy the free market by eliminating and preventing all competition. Let that sink in because most people can’t grasp that at first, Once again, the end goal of capitalism is to destroy free markets, and create an all powerful, monopoly or all powerful, duopoly. That destroys consumer choice, which is the very goal of a free market, People often assume capitalism and free markets go hand in hand, and generally they do.... until a business grows so big that it is no longer subject to competition because it can or has effectively destroyed it,
That’s the very point of anti-trust law. To prevent the destruction of free markets,
There is a price to be paid for total success and rightly so. Once a company becomes so successful that it has essentially destroyed competition, the checks and balances of a free market are destroyed. Either the company is forcibly broken up in a way that restores a level of free market control or it becomes subject to regulations as a substitute for the loss of free market checks and balances.
is the App Store a monopoly or even just a duopoly? The argument for the latter is strong, and for the latter is almost certain,
The real question here is do you support free markets, defined as markets that encourage healthy competition for the benefit of consumers ? If so, you can’t argue that Apple should be allowed to do whatever it wants, because Apple created the App Store. As you cheer on Apple becoming a 2 trillion dollar company, remember that you are also cheering the end of a truly functional free market for mobile apps.
The United States has become a poster child for massive inequality in developed countries and is getting worse. That “American Dream” that is all but gone, was strong after world war 2. The reason the American dream was reborn was the Sherman Act.... powerful anti trust law that broke up large corporate Robber Barons, like Rockefeller. Forcing the breakup of too large and powerful corporations after world war 2 is what brought back the American dream and decades of shared prosperity.
So the larger question here is do you want to worship the control of monopolistic corporations that have grown to destroy free markets, or do you want to see the American dream restored, where the free market ensures maximum productivity and a fair chance for everyone to share in that prosperity ?