San Francisco (AFP)
The battle between Apple and Epic Games promises to be fierce and the lawsuit between the iPhone manufacturer and the publisher of the game Fortnite in early May will be closely followed by many companies and elected officials who accuse Apple of anti-competitive practices. .
"Epic wants to pass Apple for the + bad + in order to revive interest in Fortnite, which is in decline", assert the lawyers of the Cupertino firm in the introduction of a document of more than 300 pages filed Wednesday evening at the court in Oakland, California.
The hugely popular survival video game group, which has delivered an equally long argument to the court, sued Apple in August for abuse of dominance over its mobile operating system, iOS.
"Thanks to technical and contractual means, Apple has built the iOS ecosystem in such a way as to restrict the distribution of applications, exclude its rivals, harm competition and consumers", summarizes Epic Games.
His boss, Tim Sweeney, and Apple's boss, Tim Cook, are expected in person at the trial.
Last summer, the publisher tried to get around what it calls the "Apple tax" by offering users an alternative to the App Store payment system, the platform for downloading applications on iOS.
Apple immediately excluded the game from the platform for breach of contract, a decision supported by the court.
- Closed market -
But the case now exceeds the dispute between the two groups.
Other companies, like Spotify, consider the 15-30% commissions levied by Apple to be too high and unfair on most transactions made through the App Store and downloaded applications.
And various American antitrust regulators are investigating the practices of Apple, which is de facto judge and party on the App Store, since it also distributes its applications there.
On other devices, the Android (Google) system works similarly, with one major difference: alternative platforms are allowed.
Epic Games' complaint therefore threatens the system at the heart of Apple's strategy, which encourages consumers to stay within its galaxy of physical and digital products, from iPhones to connected accessories and its entertainment offer, among others. .
The Cupertino group has been arguing for years that its commission, of a standard level, is used to ensure the proper functioning of the platform, especially in terms of security.
He believes that the success of the App Store benefits users and developers alike.
"During the two years that Fortnite was available on the App Store, Epic earned more than $ 700 million in revenue from iOS customers," noted lawyers for the California company.
But according to Epic Games, Apple has and abuses a monopoly on the distribution of applications on iOS.
There are roughly a billion active iPhones around the world - that's just as many potentially affluent consumers - and publishers wanting to enter this market are forced to pay crippling commissions and agree to anti-competitive terms. the brand with the apple, assures the editor.
- "Economic miracle" -
Apple is using the App Store "as a weapon against its competitors", rejecting or delaying rival applications under "false pretenses," Epic Games attorneys say, citing the former store manager of applications, Phil Shoemaker, who spoke in these terms during a hearing before a parliamentary committee last October.
He notably cited examples of rival applications from Google, Amazon or Dropbox.
Epic will have to prove that Apple's practices harm consumers.
He will therefore mention that some publishers, like him, are increasing their prices on the iPhone to compensate for the commission.
He will also try to dismantle the security argument, key to the argument of the group based in Silicon Valley.
According to internal Apple documents, cited by Epic's lawyers, Eric Friedman, the director of an anti-fraud team, compared the App Store's defenses to "a pretty lady who greets you with flowers at the airport in Hawaii instead of a dog trained in drug detection ".
The tech giant intends to argue that it faces strong competition in the distribution of game applications, from other application stores (such as Google Play), consoles (PlayStation, Xbox ) and various video game streaming platforms.
"Apple has helped build an economy that brings in over $ 500 billion a year, and only receives a dab of that amount in payment for all the innovation it has facilitated and operating costs," Tim Cook recently told the New York Times, comparing the App Store to "an economic miracle".
© 2021 AFP