Judge caps in-person attendance for Apple v. Epic Games trial

The judge presiding over the upcoming Apple and Epic Games bench trial has placed a cap on the number of in-person attendees, citing coronavirus concerns.

U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers placed limits on the number of people who can attend the trial, which is slated to kick off on May 3 and is likely to be held in-person. Previously, Judge Rogers said the case is important enough to warrant an in-person meeting rather than a virtual session.

Apple and Epic Games will each be able to have six people in the courtroom at a time, Judge Rogers decided. All people must wear masks, regardless of whether or not they are fully vaccinated against coronavirus, Law360 reported Monday.

Members of the press and the public will not be allowed to attend the trial in-person, but live audio of the proceedings will be provided.

Each side will have 45 hours to present their case. The court will hear testimony from a number of high-profile witnesses, including Apple CEO Tim Cook and Apple Fellow Phil Schiller.

The case originates from a lawsuit that Epic Games levied against Apple in 2020 after baiting the Cupertino tech giant into removing "Fortnite" from the App Store. Epic Games, which plans to call witnesses from third-party companies like Facebook and Microsoft, has accused Apple of controlling markets, blocking competition, and stifling innovation.

17 Comments

22july2013 3733 comments · 11 Years

About 3 years ago

Has anyone found Scott Forstall yet?

jeffreytgilbert 368 comments · 14 Years

Also, is that a rainbow donkey with a bite out of its neck? I don’t play fortnite, so i have no idea what that’s supposed to be.

I hope something comes out of this case that gets apple to lower their cut of the profits. I don’t care how you justify it to yourselves; a 30% take on every sale is total bs. There’s nothing even remotely close to that on any other system. The only justification anyone has for that take is based on pure speculation. There in lies the problem, especially in the a la carte time of cloud services and low network transaction fee crypto currencies. Something has to give.

dvdbhlr 1 comment · 3 Years

jeffreytgilbert said:

Also, is that a rainbow donkey with a bite out of its neck? I don’t play fortnite, so i have no idea what that’s supposed to be.
I hope something comes out of this case that gets apple to lower their cut of the profits. I don’t care how you justify it to yourselves; a 30% take on every sale is total bs. There’s nothing even remotely close to that on any other system. The only justification anyone has for that take is based on pure speculation. There in lies the problem, especially in the a la carte time of cloud services and low network transaction fee crypto currencies. Something has to give.

It’s not BS. Thirty percent is the industry standard. https://www.ign.com/articles/2019/10/07/report-steams-30-cut-is-actually-the-industry-standard

foregoneconclusion 2856 comments · 12 Years

jeffreytgilbert said: I hope something comes out of this case that gets apple to lower their cut of the profits. I don’t care how you justify it to yourselves; a 30% take on every sale is total bs.

FYI per Epic: the 12% doesn't include covering the transactional costs for the developer. If the developer wants Epic to cover transactional costs (like Apple does in the App Store), the cut goes up to 25%. Also, Apple has lowered the cut to 15% for developers making less than one million (while still covering transactions), so you can make an argument that Epic is actually more expensive now compared to Apple for smaller developers.

aderutter 624 comments · 17 Years

Oh, and it’s Apple’s store so they should be able to take 90% if they wanted. Nobody is making companies make games for iOS devices.