Epic Games Plans Next Move After Victory Against Apple Favoring Crypto

On Monday, Epic Games founder Tim Sweeney tweeted that the firm is working on the next steps following its recent landmark victory against Apple after a US court of appeal ruled that Apple’s anti-steering policy is anti-competitive.

Sweeney said the court’s favorable decision rejecting Apple’s anti-steering provisions frees iOS developers to send consumers to the web to do business with them directly there. “We are working on next steps,” Sweeney added.

Notably, the ruling is expected to impact the crypto industry significantly. Previously, crypto apps and services were prohibited from directing users to other websites to make purchases, forcing users to pay higher fees when buying through Apple’s App Store.

The ruling will now allow crypto app developers to direct users to other websites to make purchases, giving users more choices and lower prices when buying crypto-related products and services.

Last December, Dan Finlay, the co-founder of MetaMask, called on the crypto industry the App Store because of Apple’s 30% in-app purchase tax, which he described as ‘an abuse of monopoly.’

In a mixed ruling, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld Apple’s App Store policies on April 24, 2023. The court found that Apple did not violate antitrust law, but it did find that the company’s anti-steering provisions were anticompetitive.

Epic Games had argued that Apple’s provisions were exploitative because they forced users to pay higher prices for apps and in-app content. Nonetheless, Epic Games could not prove its Sherman Act case, which alleged that Apple had monopolized the market for app distribution on iOS devices.