Google CEO Sundar Pichai, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, Apple CEO Tim Cook, and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg speak before a July 29, 2020 House Judiciary committee meeting.
Google CEO Sundar Pichai, Apple CEO Tim Cook, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, and Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos (clockwise from top left) speak before a July 29, 2020 House Judiciary committee meeting.
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The DeanBeat: Epic Games vs. Apple/Google is a shot heard around the world — but it’s risky

  • Posted byby Dean Takahashi
  • Updated
  • 8 min

Epic Games’ simmering antitrust dispute with Apple and Google turned into a hot war Thursday, as Epic Games announced a discount policy and direct payment mechanism for Fortnite that Apple and Google said violated their terms of service.

Apple tossed Fortnite out of the iOS App Store, and Epic Games filed an antitrust suit. Later in the day, Google also dropped Fortnite from Google Play, and Epic Games sued Google as well.

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Written by

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.