San Francisco (AFP)
The Fortnite video game is no longer available in Apple's app store, and the iPhone maker further threatens to cut its publisher, Epic Games, off access to programming tools needed for others products.
Last Thursday, Apple and Google pulled Fortnite from their app download platforms, after Epic Games tried to bypass commission payment systems owed to the two tech giants.
Epic Games immediately filed a complaint against the two groups in Silicon Valley.
On Monday, the company further asked the California court for a restraining order against Apple, to prevent it from carrying out its threats.
"Not content with removing Fortnite from the App Store, Apple is attacking all of Epic in unrelated areas," the publisher's lawyers write in the legal request.
They quote a letter sent by Apple on Friday, letting the studio know that, following the violation of the regulation, its "access to the + Apple Developer Program + will be terminated if the violations described are not rectified within 14 days".
Developers must pay app download platforms - the App Store and Google Play Store - a 30% commission on user transactions.
But Epic Games installed an alternative payment method on Thursday, to encourage players to bypass built-in systems by default - and thus save money.
The publisher needs Apple's programming tools (included in the "Apple Developer Program") to distribute other applications on iOS, the operating system on Apple mobile devices.
It also uses it for its video creation platform Unreal Engine, used by various video game studios, films and shows.
"If Unreal Engine is no longer operational on Apple, the studios will have to use alternatives. The damage caused to Epic's activities, to its reputation and to the confidence of its customers will not be measurable or repairable", detail the lawyers.
They ask the court "to prevent Apple from crushing Epic before the trial even takes place."
Epic Games is pushing for a change in Apple's rules for all app developers. "Apple imposes unreasonable and illegal restrictions to monopolize the two markets," says the studio's complaint, which calls the 30% commission a "tyrannical tax."
Apple said on Thursday that it was simply implementing the contract accepted by all developers.
The group has defended itself against similar attacks in the past, saying that commissions are used to protect apps and their users from hackers and scams.
© 2020 AFP