Apple just took a gigantic hit in the UK after a London tribunal ruled that the company was abusing its market position to charge developers “unfair” App Store commissions. As reported by Reuters, this ruling comes after a trial that started in January of this year, and Apple is facing up to £1.5 billion in damages. The lawsuit centers on the “exorbitant prices” and the 30% commission fee charged to App Store developers.
What Does This Mean For Mobile Sports Gamers?
This ruling is the direct result of the class-action lawsuit led by Rachael Kent, filed on behalf of roughly 20 million iPhone and iPad users. The argument is simple: Apple’s monopoly on app distribution makes it impossible for developers to sell software on third-party storefronts, and the commission fee costs sometimes trickle down to consumers. Apple disagrees, and a spokesperson says the following:
“This ruling overlooks how the App Store helps developers succeed and gives consumers a safe, trusted place to discover apps and securely make payments.”
Mobile developers have been pushing back against Google and Apple’s App Store control for a while now, and this ruling gives them a lot of credibility. For game studios, especially smaller ones, the 30% fee that Apple and Google take for transactions through their store has always been a massive hurdle. That’s money that could’ve gone into development, post-launch updates, or hiring new staff. Instead, it’s been siphoned off just to gain access to the iPhone/Android ecosystem.
If you notice ridiculously high prices on premium titles and in-app purchases in mobile games, these fees are partly to blame. In your favorite mobile sports games, microtransactions and DLC packs that you’ve been buying might have been inflated because of Apple’s fees. In fact, the Competition Appeal Tribunal, the one that handed the ruling, finds that half the costs of these fees were passed directly to users. This also sets a legal precedent that might spill over to Google’s Play Store, which faces its own billion-pound class action lawsuit, according to The Register.
