Epic Games will never just take the win — it's now appealing to the court of public opinion that it takes one more actual step to install a third-party App Store as it does to install an app from the App Store itself.
While Epic Games has been at Apple's throat for years, it is also attempting to get Google to bend to its will. Now it issued a statement saying the changes the EU enforced prove that Apple was deliberately using design tricks to dissuade users from installing a third-party app store.
"As a result [of what Apple has done so far], we've seen a stunning 60% decrease in player drop-off during attempts to install the Epic Games Store," says the company in a new blog post.
"Prior to Apple's update, around 65% of users attempting to install the Epic Games Store on iOS were thwarted by Apple's deceptive design," it continues. "After the update, the drop-off rate has gone from 65% down to around 25%, and continues on a downward trend as users upgrade to the new version of iOS."
Deceptive design is a topic that Epic Games knows very well. In 2023, it was fined $245 million by the FTC for using design to trick Fortnite users into unintended purchases.
That was about the use of "dark patterns" to make users press the wrong buttons. In comparison, Epic Games ridiculously says that Apple's deceptive design concerns the number of steps users had to go through to install the third-party App Store.
Epic Games says that this used to take 15 steps, and it proves this by showing screenshots — of which three are bizarrely just iPhone homescreens. There are other questionable "steps" in the games company's example, but Epic does grudgingly praise how Apple has reduced it to six steps.
Only, it says that is still "unlawful," and that it remains too many steps — and again, charitably it's exaggerating. This time it says the six steps are:
Epic Games thinks six steps are too much for users. Fortunately, only three are Apple's and need a user to do anything — image credit: Epic Games
- Tapping Install
- Tapping Allow when asked about an App Marketplace
- Confirming installation with the side button and user authentication
- Waiting for the installation to complete
- Tapping to open the Epic Games store
- Tapping Get Started to begin.
Waiting for the install hardly counts as a step, since it is what every app requires — and the user doesn't have to do anything. Confirming installation is a step, but again it's what any app that can charge money will do.
Then the final screen, the Get Started one, is just tapping through, like almost every app, ever.
Consequently, the six steps Epic says is better than it was yet still not perfect, is really three steps. Tap to install, allow, and confirm.
It's hard to know how much more could be removed. Unless Apple were forced to preload the Epic Games App Store instead of its own.
We tested it this morning. Minus internet download time which has nothing to do with Apple or Epic, it takes about four seconds to install an app from Apple's App Store. It takes about six seconds and one extra tap, to install a third-party app store.
That's not what we'd call a barrier to installing Epic's store.
What's really being said
Epic Games is right that Apple has dropped its previous scare screens intended to dissuade users from buying a third-party App Store. But it couldn't just say that, it had to damn Apple alongside praising it in order to then damn Android.
The post seesaws between questionable accusations. It reads as if it's designed for fans — or future lawyers — to concentrate on excerpts instead of the full thing.
Hence Epic's continued whining that Apple continues to violate EU laws, as Android does, so there.
"As a result of these anticompetitive acts, developers have been willing to distribute far fewer mobile games through the Epic Games Store on iOS than the Epic Games Store on Android," concludes Epic Games.
It's disingenuous to say that it's Apple's fault developers aren't placing their apps on the Epic Games store. Regardless of how many steps it takes a user, a developer makes more sales through being there than not.
Except, of course, Epic Games imposes its own fees on developers joining its app store.
