Epic Games: mobile "gatekeeping" is "at the heart of why the industry is in a rut"

Back in September of 2023, the European Union officially designated Apple a «gatekeeper» under the Digital Markets Act (DMA), stipulating that it must open its App Store on iOS in a number of ways, including adding the ability to «side-load» apps from the web rather than the store, to have other storefronts available, and more.

If you've been even vaguely following the issue, you'll know this is all of particular interest to Epic Games — in fact much of it is being driven by Epic Games' complaints, going back to its in-game «Free Fortnite» campaign after Epic intentionally broke Apple's rules to get Fortnite kicked off the platform. In the years since, Epic's founder and CEO Tim Sweeney has continued to be vocal on the topic. Responding to a Tweet that suggested it took 15 steps to side-load an app under Apple's proposed, post-DMA solution, Sweeney called it «the worst app installation experience in the history of computing!», an «abomination» and an example of «malicious compliance» of the ruling.

Congratulations to Apple leadership for designing the worst app installation experience in the history of computing! Because Apple designers are the world’s best, there’s no question that this abomination is a premeditated part of a malicious European DMA compliance strategy. https://t.co/zx4aZicdEA— Tim Sweeney (@TimSweeneyEpic) <a href=«https://twitter.com/TimSweeneyEpic/status/1767635662902272452?ref_src=» https:>March 12, 2024

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Apple, for its part, maintains that this is all part of its efforts to maintain things like safety and privacy, while the specifics of the ruling itself, and Apple's compliance with it, quickly become quite technical. There is some suggestion the EU has asked for exactly what Apple has done — to both prevent Apple «gatekeeping» and simultaneously require it maintains the upsides of what that gatekeeping enables. All the while, there's been significant tit-for-tat between