Home » Everything Tim Cook said in the Apple vs Epic Games trial

Everything Tim Cook said in the Apple vs Epic Games trial

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The last act of the legal battle between Apple and Epic Games it ended with Tim Cook’s testimony in front of Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers who, after the defense rite questions, subjected Cook to a series of fairly direct questions about Apple’s strategies and decisions regarding its virtual store.

The story begins in August 2020, with the decision of Epic Games to insert a purchase system within the iOS version of Fortnite which bypassed the Apple Store, effectively eliminating the 30% share on transactions that flows into the Cupertino coffers and which was deemed excessive. Consequently, Fortnite was eliminated from the platform, while the procedure, requested by Epic Games, took place in recent weeks with testimonies and revelations from both sides.

The sentence is expected in August, and it is a lot important for two reasons:

  • could open the doors of the Apple Store also to other forms of monetization that exclude Apple or to third-party stores
  • could lead to revision of earnings percentages between Cupertino and developers (which has already been halved for all companies that grossed less than a million dollars the previous year).

Epic Games ha also sued Google, but given Apple’s influence in the mobile market and its ability to dictate fashions and monetary models, the spotlight is especially on this case.

The reasons for Epic Games
Epic Games’ goal is to demonstrate that Apple acts in a monopoly situation and that it uses this mechanism to benefit its products and abuse a dominant position. For its part, Apple claims that its Store is a platform that guarantees users a very high level of security regarding personal data and transactions, while also providing developers with reliable tools to create content. All this obviously has a cost, also because according to Cook it would be very difficult for a third-party store to guarantee the same level of integration between services, hardware and software.

Cook himself has been quite vague regarding the Apple Store’s earnings, investments to improve it, and other areas of investment for the company. During the interrogation, Judge Rogers focused primarily on monetization of Apple and less on the possibility of inserting other stores on the platform. Specifically, he insisted that Apple charges a percentage of transactions that take place within video games, but doesn’t do the same with banking apps. Cook replied that in the case of video games the transaction is tangible and effective and it happens on the platform, not to third parties, and that the one chosen by Apple is not the only possible way to monetize, but it is probably the best.

The lawsuit between Apple and Epic Games that could redefine the boundaries of digital monopolies has begun

Lorenzo Fantoni

Rogers then stated that, while acknowledging Apple’s commitment to creating an ecosystem that attracts customers and games, it is the games that keep the audience on the platform, while Apple only profits from it. Cook’s answer focused on the fact that there are a lot of apps that bring audiences to the Apple Store, even a lot of free apps, on which there is no profit, or developed by Apple itself with its own money and that all in all 30% of the transactions are asked only to those who actually have a very large volume of business. Furthermore, the choice to reduce the percentage for smaller developers it would not have been made to buffer any complaints, but in a competitive regime.

Until now, the legal experts were quite inclined to award the final victory to Apple, because the theses of Epic Games are complex to prove unequivocally, but the roughness of the exchange between Judge Gonzalez Rogers and Cook has messed up the forecasts: all that remains is to wait for August for the sentence and any appeals.

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