The European Commission may be happy with Apple’s new app store rules, but Epic Games sure isn’t. The Fortnite developer and proprietor of one of the largest game stores thinks that Apple’s changes still violate the Digital Markets Act.
The Irish Independent posted quotes from a European Commission spokesperson: “The Commission welcomes Apple’s changes to their business terms, which follow a close dialogue between the Commission and Apple after the Commission issued a non-compliance decision related to Apple’s steering terms as well as preliminary findings related to alternative app distribution, both in April 2025.”
The spokesperson also applauded the removal of Apple’s Core Technology Fee – but said nothing of the new 5% Core Technology Commission. Apple also widened the rules on who is allowed to run third-party app stores for iOS, which was also hailed as a good thing.
Epic, however, disagrees. In a post on X the company wrote: “The law makes it clear that Apple must allow developers to offer link outs to the web for purchases ‘free of charge’ and has to allow ‘effective use’ of competing stores. Apple’s terms deliberately violate the Digital Markets Act. If the Commission accepts the terms and drops their ongoing enforcement actions, the law will become meaningless and consumers and developers will not experience the benefits it was designed to provide.”
A few months ago, Epic released a version of the Epic Game Store for iOS, which is available in regions where Apple is legally required to allow third-party stores – right now this means the EU, Japan and Brazil. However, the company clearly doesn’t approve of Apple charging a 10% or a 15% commission on payments made on linked web pages (the percentage depends on whether a third-party payment processor is used or not). And it’s not happy about the 5% Core Technology Commission on third-party app stores either.
It’s not just Apple, though. Epic sued Google as well, which pushed Google to change its Play Store fees along with the procedure of installing a third-party app store on Android devices. Yes, there is an Epic Games Store for Android, but it’s only available as a web download for now (that should change soon, though).
