(Reuters) – Apple Inc said it plans to claim it faces plentiful competition in the video game transaction market to defend itself against antitrust allegations from “Fortnite” maker Epic Games, the iPhone maker said Thursday.
Epic sued Apple in federal court in California last year, arguing that Apple charges 15% to 30% commissions for using its in-app payment systems and Apple’s years of practice of exercising control over which apps can be installed on its devices. anti-competitive behavior. The dispute arose after Epic attempted to implement its own in-app payment system in the popular “Fortnite” game and Apple subsequently banned the game from the App Store.
The case will be heard in Oakland, California in May by US District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers, who will have to decide which notion of a “market” is appropriate to analyze Apple’s moves for signs of anti-competitive behavior.
Epic has framed its case around the idea that Apple’s iPhones, with an installed base of more than 1 billion users, represent their own distinct market for software developers. Epic has argued that Apple has a monopoly position in that market because it decides how users can install software on the devices and says it is abusing that power by forcing developers to deliver their software through the App Store, where developers pay fees for some transactions. .
In an application Apple planned to submit on Thursday, the company rejected that idea, saying that the proper market to analyze the matter is the video game transaction market, which includes platforms such as Nintendo Co Ltd and Microsoft Corp’s Xbox game consoles, which also the software that can run on their hardware and charge developers.
Apple said it plans to argue that consumers have many choices when conducting video game transactions, including purchasing virtual tokens from game developers on other platforms such as Windows PCs and using the tokens on iPhones at no cost to the game -developer.
Reporting by Stephen Nellis in San Francisco; Editing by Leslie Adler