Epic Games Gets Another (Partial) Win Against Apple And Google, This Time In Australia

Once again, Epic Games and Tim Sweeney are celebrating a legal win against Apple and Google over the issue of allowing third-party companies to distribute games on their devices outside of the App Store and Play Store. As we all know by now, Epic has been fighting with the two companies over this particular issue for a few years now, even having the popular F2P battle royale Fortnite forcefully removed from the App Store.

Since then, there have been some wins and some losses for all involved, and Fortnite has returned to the platforms in some regions. The most recent of these was the return to the North American iOS store.

As it turned out, the time away from the store resulted in a loss of more than $1 billion in earnings for Epic Games, but that hasn’t deterred the company from its chosen course, with Sweeney even stating that the company is prepared for a “decades-long fight” if necessary.

It seems that dedication is working out for them, somewhat. As noted, the results of various suits in different locations have been a bit of a mixed bag. That being said, the wins still seem pretty big, as is the case with Epic’s suits against Apple and Google in Australia.

Although originally two separate complaints, the judge, Justice Jonathan Beach, elected to combine the two cases as well as a class action. This, according to a report on The Guardian, was “to avoid duplication of witness evidence”.

Epic did not win on every point of their case, which alleged that Apple’s tight grip on in-app purchases constituted “a misuse of market power” and harmed competition, and that Google blocking the ability to make choices regarding app distribution and payments harmed consumers. They did, however, get a win in that both companies were found to have breached a specific section of Australia’s Competition and Consumer Act.

One result of this decision is that Fortnite will be returning to iOS in the country – after Epic reviews more than 2,000 pages of court findings, that is.