The long-running feud between Epic Games and Apple continues to develop following many months of progress towards some kind of conclusion.Epic Games first filed a lawsuit against Appleall the way back in August of 2020, and, ever since, the two media companies have been going back and forth with one another.
Now, an in-person trial date has been set by the judge presiding over the procession, Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers. Reportedly, the in-person trial is set for Jul 06, 2025, in Northern California, which will require witnesses and representatives from bothEpic GamesandAppleto take the necessary precautions due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
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The report comes by way of MacRumors, which reported that the date was set during a management conference surrounding the trial proceedings on March 1. Now, both parties will have about two months to fully prepare for the trial. As the trial date approaches, it will be very interesting to see just how the industry reacts and reports on the overall proceedings and outcomes, as such high-profile legal battles such as this hardly make major headlines in the games industry. Seeing as the Apple and Epic Games legal battle was one of thebiggest video game controversies of 2020, there will no doubt be a lot of eyes on the trial during the next couple of months.
Despite Epic Games taking on a goliath of a media company like Apple, Epic Games' CEO Tim Sweeney sounded relatively calm about the whole ordeal last month. During an interview with CNN, Sweeney went into detail about the logistics ofhow Epic Games can fight Apple in courtwithout taking too much of a substantial, financial risk to the company.
Basically, because Epic Games is so financially independent and a large sum of the company’s revenue does not come from the Apple app store, the company is able to somewhat eat the cost of the legal battle. Of course, it’s not something that could go on for too long without having a serious impact on the company.
Regardless, it’s impressive that Epic Games chose to pick a fight with one of the biggest tech companies in the world. As for what will go on during the trial, it still remains to be seen what kind of witness testimonies will be made and so on. Recently,Valve was subpoenaed for this Epic Games lawsuitand was forced to reveal information on over 400 steam games. It’s fairly likely that some more behind-the-scenes news may come out of the in-person trial in May similar to the recent reporting surrounding Valve.
Despite the trial looming over Epic Games,Fortnitehas continued to operate as normal the whole time. DespiteEpic Games continuing its “FreeFortnite” campaignand the game’s removal from the Apple app store,Fortnitehas continued on relatively undisturbed. Though Epic Games may be anxious leading up to the in-person trial,Fortniteplayers likely won’t have to worry about anything happening in-game as the May 3 trial date approaches.
