Of course, the introduction of the Digital Markets Act, last March 7, brought a lot of news (and confusion).
The DMA, a European regulation created to guarantee plurality in the digital market, ultimately has the objective of limiting the excessive power of six big tech companies identified as gatekeepers. Namely Meta, Alphabet (Google), Amazon, ByteDance (TikTok), Microsoft and Apple.
It is precisely from this last company, which for years has relied on a closed system, that the strongest resistance is coming. We will return to the topic.
Furthermore, the introduction of the DMA, which in Europe requires Tim Cook's company to also allow the presence of other stores on iOS and the possibility of external payments, has exacerbated the old tensions with Epic Gamesalso regarding the possibility of welcoming the Epic Games Store into its system.
The surprise for European users came in the last few hours: the Epic store will be a reality on iOS and Android in the near future.
Presto l’Epic Games Store
The announcement of the upcoming opening of the Epic Games Store was made by the company itself during the Game Developers Conference 2024.
Epic's digital store will debut on iOS and Android. It is the “first store focused on multiplatform video games”that is, which also distributes third-party titles, now already available on Windows and macOS.
There are two striking new features. Meanwhile, the return of Fortnite, a video game removed from the App Store in August 2020, gave rise to a long and complex legal battle.
Then there is the matter of percentages. Epic Games Store will retain a 12% fee if its payment method is used. Which means that the developers will be left with 88% of the revenues (but there is no percentage for external payments). The commission is therefore significantly lower than the 30% retained by Applewhich together with another tax provoked a reprimand (we'll talk about it again) from the EU antitrust authority.
The store of the company led by Tim Sweeney should arrive on iOS and Android before the end of 2024.
Epic Games Store no, actually yes
The Epic Games Store was the terrain on which Apple and Epic battled in the hours immediately following the entry into force of the Digital Markets Act.
On March 7, the Cupertino company said it had closed Epic's developer account. The reason? The video game company had been deemed “clearly unreliable”.
Epic Games had then asked the European institutions for help, explaining that Apple's unilateral decision was in open conflict with the rules of the DMA.
A few hours after the ban, the European Union announced that it had launched an investigation into Apple's conduct, corroborated by an explicit post on X by Thierry Breton, European Commissioner for Competition. At that point, Apple had backtracked, declaring that it would reopen the developer account of the arch-enemy company.
The age-old Epic-Apple controversy
We have talked about the age-old Epic-Apple battle in so many of those articles, that here we limit ourselves to a very minimal summary.
It all began in August 2020, when Epic Apple excluded the Fortnite game from the Apple Store, because Epic had added alternative payment methods. The aim was to bypass the 30% commission Apple asked developers.
From there a long trial, which ended with Epic paying 3.5 million dollars for breach of contract with Apple. But in turn Tim Cook's company, the ruling states, will no longer be able to “prohibit developers from including in their apps and their metadata buttons, external links, or other calls to action that direct customers towards purchasing mechanisms , in addition to In-App purchases.”
La Core Technology Fee
If the 30% withholding from developers has sent another company not exactly a friend of the Cupertino company, i.e. Spotify, into a rage, the EU is eyeing Apple for a further commission, the Core Technology Fee. Which includes a commission of 0.50 euros, to be paid for each first annual installation if the app hosted on iOS exceeds one million installations.
Margrethe Vestager, European Commissioner for Competition, criticized the tax. Speaking exclusively to Reuters, Vestager said: “There are things we are very interested in, for example, whether Apple's new pricing structure will in fact make it attractive in any way to use DMA benefits. This kind of thing is what we will investigate.”
