Travis Scott's concert in Fortnite drew 27.7 million viewers.

The DeanBeat: Apple v. Epic — a briefing on the antitrust arguments and interesting facts

We’re at a huge moment in tech and antitrust history with the litigation initiated by Fortnite maker Epic Games against Apple and Google. While the Google dispute has taken a backseat in the news, the conflict with Apple has gone hot because of that company’s retaliatory strike and a request for a temporary restraining order from Epic.

The conflict began August 13 when Epic announced a discount policy and direct payment mechanism for Fortnite that Apple and Google said violated their respective terms of service. Epic CEO Tim Sweeney has long argued that the 30% commissions the big companies take of every game transaction is unfair and Epic should be able to directly sell its in-app goods to players for lower prices. It argued that app distribution and payment could be as open on Apple’s iOS platform as it is on personal computers.

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Dean Takahashi

Dean Takahashi is editorial director for GamesBeat. He has been a tech journalist since 1988, and he has covered games as a beat since 1996. He was lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat from 2008 to April 2025. Prior to that, he wrote for the San Jose Mercury News, the Red Herring, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the Dallas Times-Herald. He is the author of two books, "Opening the Xbox" and "The Xbox 360 Uncloaked." He organizes the annual GamesBeat Next, GamesBeat Summit and GamesBeat Insider Series: Hollywood and Games conferences and is a frequent speaker at gaming and tech events. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.