Quick sidenote- Tim Sweeney’s net worth as of April 2021 is $7.4 billion. And his Project Liberty! which is to, lemme check my notes, “make him boatloads more money.” Got it. A real man of the people. Tim, maybe instead of making noises about rights, you should settle down and pay some taxes.
Anyways, Apple countersued Epic, saying they deliberately provoked Apple to take their app off the App Store just to sue them. Dastardly! Epic, what is this, Entrapment? Are you Catherine Zeta-Jones, Epic? At the same time, Apple tried to remove Epic’s access to iOS developer tools, but the good Judge blocked it. Take that, Apple! (Who am I supposed to be rooting for? The company worth billions or the one worth a trillion?)
All of that happened in August 2020. Then, because this is the American justice system, after all, we wait.
And wait.
And wait …
Until May 2021. The trial begins, and things immediately get weird. Philosophically weird. Epic says that Fortnite is more than a game; it’s a metaverse! Apple says that Roblox is a game, and the games within Roblox are experiences. Roblox, unsure how they got involved, changed their website’s language to call their games-within-the-game “experiences.” Poor Roblox, minding its own enormous business and getting dragged into a fight.
Most of the trial isn’t about Roblox, though. The case focuses mostly on Apple’s anti-steering policies in the App Store. The Judge says no more racing games on iPhones.
Just kidding, not that kind of steering. Anti-steering means that Apple won’t let you include anything that could provoke a user to go spend money at a different storefront from an Apple app. So you can’t steer users to your store.
After the trial, we had another nice long wait until September 2021. Judge Rogers issued her verdict! She found in favor of Apple on all counts but one: anti-steering. This means Fortnite isn’t allowed on the App Store anymore. (Epic says they don’t care, they don’t even wanna be on the App Store .) However, it means that developers can now direct their users to other stores from Apple Apps. (Apple says they don’t care, they don’t even wanna stop steering anymore 
.)
Which brings us, roughly, to the present. The case is … over? So wait, why the heck did I write this whole thing? Because Apple has decided to appeal the ruling. Yeah, that’s right- they won nine out of 10 charges, but they’re the ones appealing. Why the heck would they do that, you might ask? Basically, the ruling said Apple has to allow steering as soon as December 2021, but if Apple appeals, then they could delay that by months. And months. And months.
So, now you’re caught up. Fortnite isn’t on the App Store. Apple won’t allow you to pay some other way yet. And Roblox games are not games at all; they’re experiences.
One thing I found interesting about all of this is that Tim Sweeney and Epic Games kept saying they were doing this for the people, man. But when the Judge said early on that maybe it would be best to have a jury rule on this case, both Epic and Apple said, “Uhhhh, no, let’s not let regular people tell us what they think.” Maybe a jury wouldn’t be too sympathetic to the whining of a billionaire? Just a guess.
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Related: ‘Fortnite’ Is Topping The Charts In … Divorces?
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Unpacking 'Fortnite' And Apple's Embarrassing Legal Battle
Source: Pinoy Daily News
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