The legal brouhaha between Epic Games and Apple has sparked new scrutiny in the Japanese gaming market, “prompting complaints and questions about how to counter the tech giant’s dominance,” reports Bloomberg.
Epic’s gripe focuses on the 30% revenue cut app stores typically take, but Japanese game studios have broader concerns. They have long been unhappy with what they see as Apple’s inconsistent enforcement of its own App Store guidelines, unpredictable content decisions and lapses in communication, according to Bloomberg.
On Aug. 13, Epic Games announced that it had introduced a new direct payment option in the Fortnite app for iPhone and iPad, allowing players to purchase 1000 V-Bucks for US$7.99 rather than $9.99 through Apple’s in-app purchase mechanism. Shortly thereafter, Apple removed the gamer from the App Store for violating App Store policies and later cut off Epic’s developer account. Epic filed a lawsuit against Apple in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.
