A court ruling in the Epic Games vs. Apple case states that the latter must allow external payment methods. Meanwhile, Epic Games has been ordered to pay over $3 million for breach of contract.<\/b>
\nApple and Epic have been locking horns in court ever since the latter tried to bypass the Cupertino tech giant’s payment systems in order to avoid paying a 30% fee. The tussle started almost a year ago when Apple kicked out Fortnite from the App Store due to attempts to bypass it commercial systems. In return, Epic sued Apple, and was then countersued for breach of contract. It’s been a mess, seriously. Today, the court has finally ruled on the case and awarded victories — or losses, depending upon how you look at it — to both parties, kind of. Judge Yvonne Gonzalez-Rogers has essentially issued two rulings. The first (via The Verge) clearly states that Apple cannot restrict developers from guiding users to alternative external payment methods. The injunction will take effect in 90 days. The wording of the ruling is as follows: Meanwhile, the second ruling favors Apple and says that Epic Games was indeed in breach of contract when it offered direct payments to customers on iOS between August and October 2020. As such, Epic Games now has to pay Apple 30% of all the associated revenue it earned in this time period. Since the revenue was around $12.17 million, this means that Epic now has to pay $3.6 million to Apple. An excerpt ( thanks,9to5Mac) from the ruling also reads: Interestingly, in a statement to The Verge, Apple claimed the rulings to be a victory for itself, stating that: In a similar vein, Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney expressed disappointment in the ruling on Twitter: In subsequent tweets, the executive went on to say that: Epic Games has confirmed to CNBC that it will appeal the court’s decision. You can view the court’s 185-page ruling here.<\/p>\n