Epic Games CEO vows to ‘fight’ Apple over ‘absurd’ changes

It looks like the latest dispute between Apple and Fortnite producer Epic Games is far from over.

Epic has been battling Apple for years over the company’s revenue-sharing requirements for the App Store. While Epic’s antitrust lawsuit against Apple was dismissed last year, many of its criticisms were echoed in another lawsuit filed against Apple in March by the Justice Department and 17 state attorneys general.

Meanwhile, in Europe, a new Digital Markets Act law has apparently allowed Epic to launch its own Epic Games Store on iOS and return Fortnite to the platform, with reduced commissions for Apple. However, Apple has reportedly rejected the games store twice over elements it said were too similar to its own App Store, most notably the “install” and “in-app purchase” buttons.

After Epic went public on Friday with its complaints about Apple’s “arbitrary, obstructive” rejections and said it had reported its concerns to European regulators, Apple approved the game store but said Epic would have to make the changes in a future update.

Everything settled? Not quite. Epic then posted that it was “in dispute” with Apple founder and CEO Tim Sweeney writing that history “turned into absurdity.”

“Apple is now telling reporters that this approval is temporary and is demanding that we change the buttons in the next version — which would make our store less standard and harder to use,” Sweeney said. “We’re going to fight that.”

This likely means that Epic will resist further changes to its game store. It remains to be seen whether the company perseveres and how Apple responds.