Epic pays Apple $6M for profits made after instituting 'Fortnite' third-party payments

Epic CEO Tim Sweeney on Monday announced that his company made a payment of $6 million to Apple for violating App Store rules, as per a ruling handed down in the Epic v. Apple court trial last week.

U.S. District Court Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers in a ruling on Friday ordered Epic to pay damages related to revenue collected from "Fortnite" sales on the App Store following the company's decision to implement a third-party in-app payment system against Apple's policies.

In an attempt to sidestep App Store commissions, Epic last year surreptitiously integrated and activated a direct payment alternative in its popular game "Fortnite." While Apple removed the title from the App Store shortly after the scheme was made public, some users downloaded and installed the offending app version and conducted in-app purchases through Epic's system.

During trial proceedings, it was revealed that Epic raked in $12,167,719 in revenue through Epic Direct Payment on iOS between August and October 2020. Judge Rogers ruled Epic must pay Apple damages that equate to 30% of that sum, plus 30% of revenue collected from Nov. 1, 2020, through Sept. 10, 2021, the date of judgment. The total comes out to $6 million, if Sweeney's tweet is correct.

There is a chance that Epic could claw back the funds if it wins an appeal of last week's ruling.

Apple in a statement on Friday called the verdict a "resounding victory" as it prevailed on nine out of ten counts. Judge Roger's single finding in Epic's favor, however, will force Apple to include alternative payment methods for in-app purchases, a major change to App Store regulations that could severely impact to Apple's bottom line.

17 Comments

22july2013 3736 comments · 11 Years

About 3 years ago

Apple's executives are probably too busy with tomorrow's product event to be dealing with the possibility of appealing the ruling.

napoleon_phoneapart 550 comments · 17 Years

22july2013 said:

Apple's executives are probably too busy with tomorrow's product event to be dealing with the possibility of appealing the ruling.

I'd hope that a huge corporation such as Apple could handle more than one thing at a time. Doesn't say much for Apple multitasking if they can't. :p

fastasleep 6451 comments · 14 Years

22july2013 said:

Apple's executives are probably too busy with tomorrow's product event to be dealing with the possibility of appealing the ruling.

They have an entire legal department under Senior Vice President and General Counsel Katherine Adams, who is most certainly an executive and has no reason to be busy with a product event.

9secondkox2 3147 comments · 8 Years

22july2013 said:

Apple's executives are probably too busy with tomorrow's product event to be dealing with the possibility of appealing the ruling.

Nah. They are always two years ahead.

Glad Epic finally has to pay something

now they need to pay iOS customers for the annoyance of them having any part in breaking up a streamlined and trustworthy payment process.

No one wants to go back to the Wild West days of opera and hackers pushing you every which way just to get something - and then you can’t even trust it.

Hopefully the market plays out where people can choose the better system snd vote that way. Will take the incentive out of convoluted tactics. Epic obviously still holds to the used car theory that “a sucker is born every minute,” but hopefully the world has wiser up a lot in modern times.