Brand wars! Fortnite vs Apple
Fortnite has got itself banned from the Apple App Store but as Mike Fletcher explains, it looks to have been a sublime marketing manoeuvre, which may have longer-term consequences for the tech giant
Who doesn’t love a good brand bust-up? So when my two teenage sons got more animated than usual over a fracas between Fortnite’s creator, Epic Games and Apple on Friday, I did something I haven’t done since DJ Marshmello played a live set in the popular video game back in February 2019 – I sat up and took notice.
As a parent, I spend most of my time trying to ignore Fortnite. If I pretend it doesn’t exist, then I don’t need to acknowledge the frustration and rage it too often induces in my two boys, or consider the amount of V-Bucks they’re spending on ‘skins’, ‘gliders’ and ‘emotes’.
However at the start of 2019, I had to acknowledge the genius of a live in-play DJ set, which would pave the way for more brands to merge experiential with digital creative in order to appeal to hard-to-reach gamers. And today, reluctantly, I have to tip my hat to Epic Games for setting a masterful trap, which Apple duly walked straight into.
Apple you see, was evidently coerced into raising the curtain on Fortnite’s latest ‘event’ by removing and banning the mobile-version of the game from its App Store for ‘violations of its in-app purchasing policies’ (a move, which was then also followed by the removal of Fortnite from the Google Play Store).
In response, Epic Games launched a publicity-hungry lawsuit against both Apple and Google, and broadcast Apple’s treachery to its loyal fan-base with a precocious piece of Fortnite brand video content, which by 8pm on Friday night had already attracted 2.5 million YouTube views and had gained another two million views by 6pm on Saturday.
Epic Games has basically been gunning for Apple for a while now. It hates the fact that Apple takes 30% commission on payments made inside gaming apps. Plus, it strongly disapproves of Apple’s apparent stance on the future of cloud gaming services, which are designed to allow gamers to play any title across any device (except for… yes you guessed it… Apple products).
Epic Games sprung its trap by adding its own in-app payment system to mobile Fortnite, which bypassed Apple’s cut. When players purchased Fortnite’s in-game currency ‘V-Bucks’, a new “Epic Direct Payment Option” appeared below the standard “Apple App Store Payment” option, offering players a discount.
What choice did Apple, or Google for that matter, have?
Both tech titans argue that their huge 30% commissions are necessary for them to maintain their app stores, along with the security and simplicity they provide. Yea right!
Epic Games knew its move would trigger a ban. The ace up its sleeve however was a 48-second protest video, ready to launch as soon as Apple took the bait.
The video, which is available to view in-game to a potential audience of 250 million players worldwide, mocks Apple’s Orwellian 1984 Macintosh commercial, which sought to rail against IBM’s dominance in the early Eighties.
The original Apple advert, which was directed by Ridley Scott, ran during the 1984 Super Bowl.
Announcing the arrival of its Macintosh computer, it directly targeted IBM’s dominance in the tech sector. It features a woman, running from Big Brother-like goons, before hurling a hammer into a talking head on a giant screen and saving a mass of grey hypnotised viewers.
Epic’s 2020 version, entitled Nineteen Eighty-Fortnite, is the same, but replaces the original speaker with a giant talking Apple, the hypnotised masses with avatars from the game, and the girl with Fortnite’s Brite Bomber avatar (thanks son!).
Epic calls on players to #FreeFortnite, a hashtag which is now all over Twitter and features prominently on Fortnite log-in screens.
“Apple has become what it once railed against: the behemoth seeking to control markets, block competition, and stifle innovation,” says Epic Games in its filed lawsuit. “Apple is bigger, more powerful, more entrenched, and more pernicious than the monopolists of yesteryear.”
Despite Google closing ranks with Apple by also removing Fortnite from its Play store, Epic’s protest campaign is only aimed at Apple – presumedly because what crazed idiot would take them both on at the same time?
It may however, also have something to do with the fact that Epic isn’t the first brand to take Apple to task over this particular issue.
Epic is effectively surfing a wave that’s already been building against Apple. Fortnite‘s publisher is tapping into a cause that’s already primed and ready to level-up.
It was Spotify that first laid the foundations for this protest by filing an antitrust complaint against Apple to the European Union in March 2019. As a result, the EU finally opened its investigation into Apple’s App Store in June this year, making Epic’s timing….well epic.
As Spotify’s CEO Daniel Ek outlined in a blog post at the time of the initial complaint, the music streaming service believes that the 30% commission Apple takes from subscriptions made via the App Store is designed to harm brands such as his own, since Spotify has to ‘artificially inflate’ its prices ‘well above the price of Apple Music’ to compensate for the tax.
Both Spotify, with 138 million subscribers across 92 markets, and Epic, which saw 12.3 million concurrent players participate in its Travis Scott in-play concert back in April this year, certainly have the fanbases to cause Apple a few sleepless nights.
But Spotify’s attempts to spark a revolution in early 2019 with a press campaign, website and YouTube video largely went unnoticed.
Epic’s more creative approach to ensnaring Apple in a viral bear-trap looks like it may have lit the blue touch-paper in more ways than just recruiting wider interest in the EU’s ongoing investigation.
With U.S presidential candidate Joe Biden historically critical of ‘Big Tech’, the upcoming election could see the debate around breaking-up tech companies who operate marketplaces in which they also compete against rivals, (allowing them to set the rules in a way that benefits them at the expense of others) back on the agenda.
By getting itself drawn into a high-profile fight with Epic Games, Spotify and potentially the EU, Apple may just find itself the talk of more powerful towns than Fortnite’s Battle Royale Island.