Epic Games Pay $6 Million to Apple as Ordered by Judge

Epic Games paid $6 million to Apple. The payment was confirmed by the tweet from the CEO Tim Sweeney. As part of the ruling between Apple and Epic Games, the court ordered the gaming company to pay 30% of the revenue collected.

The problem arose between both the companies when Epic Games introduced a direct purchase option to the Fortnite app, skirting Apple’s in-app purchase rules. This violation of Apple’s App Store guidelines led Apple to pull Fortnite from the App Store, and directly after that, Epic filed its pre-planned lawsuit.

Though Apple removed Fortnite from its ‌ App Store‌ after Epic violated the in-app purchase rules, the gaming company was still able to collect payment from customers that had already installed the app and were actively using it. During that period the app was available before a Fortnite update that made it unusable, Fortnite made $12,167,719.‌Epic Games was forced to pay 30% of the $12 million total that was collected between August 2020 and October 2020, plus 30 percent of revenue collected from November 1, 2020, through the date of the judgment, in addition to interest, which is where the $6 million fees comes from.

Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers determined that Apple did not have a mobile gaming monopoly, and the lawsuit largely went in Apple’s favor. Apple has ordered other developers to add buttons, external links, or other calls to action that direct customers to purchasing mechanisms, which will let developers provide payment options other than in-app purchases in their apps.