Epic Games is once again accusing Apple of its dishonest practices in the market, accusing the company of violating court orders to allow developers to offer links for payments on external platforms in their apps.
In January, Apple changed some of its App Store rules in the US, allowing developers the ability to place links in their apps that take users to sites where they can purchase services or subscriptions, without having to to use the company’s own payment system.
However, to use this functionality, and even though it is on an external platform, developers still need to pay between 12 and 27% commission to Apple. However, Epic Games does not seem happy with this fee, having today confirmed in court that it considers the fee unfair.
Epic Games considers that the measure makes the use of links to external platforms unnecessary, taking into account that there continues to be a direct payment made to Apple by programmers who wish to use the system.
At the same time, the company emphasizes that this system continues to financially demotivate programmers, taking into account that there is still a considerably high fee to pay to use the system, even if it is not directly associated with the Apple platform.
Epic also gathers statements from some names in the industry, who have prominent apps in the App Store, and who are against this practice, such as the CEO of Paddle and the CEO of Down Dog.
It is important to remember that these changes were implemented after, in 2021, Epic Games won a court case that would allow programmers to create links for users to make payments outside of Apple’s system, in the USA. Apple has been trying to postpone this implementation, but ended up implementing it in January of this year.
