Yesterday, we covered the emerging legal drama between Epic Games and… well, everyone with a platform trying to take a cut from transactions inside apps. Epic implemented discounted direct payments inside its mobile apps, inciting Apple and Google to ban Fortnite from their marketplaces, which in turn allowed Epic to drop its prepared “Nineteen Eighty-Fortnite” video on a loop and its prepared lawsuit to fight what it describes as “Apple’s unfair and anti-competitive actions that Apple undertakes to unlawfully maintain its monopoly in two distinct, multibillion dollar markets: (i) the iOS App Distribution Market, and (ii) the iOS In-App Payment Processing Market.” As of today, Epic’s filed a lawsuit against Google for the same reasons.
Notably, Epic says it’s not after money. “Epic is not seeking monetary compensation from this Court for the injuries it has suffered,” the complaint declares. “Nor is Epic seeking favorable treatment for itself, a single company. Instead, Epic is seeking injunctive relief to allow fair competition in these two key markets that directly affect hundreds of millions of consumers and tens of thousands, if not more, of third-party app developers.”
But it’s definitely costing Epic money in the short-term. A report from Sensor Tower (via GIbiz) puts it all into perspective: Fortnite has made around $1.2B in revenue since it landed on the Apple store in 2018. That’s spread over 133M downloads. Over the last month, Apple players dropped $43.4M on the game, with another $3.3M coming in from Android players. (Our assumption here is that Android players were more likely to be playing outside of Google Play to begin with, given the long delay the game suffered on that platform.)
Either way, Epic’s good for it: It’s worth about $17B. And besides, it seems clear the real goal here is to get the Epic Games Store on mobile, which would be worth many, many months of losses.
