"We are reimagining E3 in a variety of ways, and part of that is engaging with indie developers by offering opportunities to help highlight them," ESA s CEO Stanley Pierre-Louis said
The long-awaited antitrust trial between Epic and Apple is in full swing, and GamesIndustry.biz will be chronicling the biggest developments and revelations throughout.
You can already follow the biggest stories via our dedicated feed, and we ll be rounding up each day s events in the articles below. This will be updated regularly, so be sure to check back for the latest on this high-profile case.
The story so far
It s safe to assume anyone following coverage of the trial already knows much of the background, but here s a short summary of how the two companies got to this point:
In August 2020, Epic Games added a hotfix to the mobile versions of popular battle royale game Fortnite that introduced the ability to make payments directly to Epic when purchasing the in-game V-Bucks currency.
The profitability of Epic Games Store has once again been brought into question as the antitrust trial between Epic and Apple kicks off.
Following the companies opening statements, the proceedings primarily concentrated on examining Epic Games, its arguments and its own business models including the Epic Games Store.
CEO Tim Sweeney gave testimony yesterday and confirmed that the store is hundreds of millions of dollars short of being profitable, The Washington Post reports.
He attributed this to upfront costs and expects the store will turn a profit within three or four years.
Further insight into these expectations can be gleaned by court documents spotted by PC Gamer, including an October 2019 performance and strategy review that features a five-year forecast for profit and loss.
Overgrowth developer Wolfire Games has filed an antitrust lawsuit against Valve, denouncing anti competitive practices from Steam s parent company.
The class action lawsuit was filed on April 27 in the US District Court for the Western District of Washington by Wolfire Games and two individuals named William Herbert and Daniel Escobar.
Valve s 30% cut is at the heart of the lawsuit, Law360 reported. The defendants pointed out that roughly 75% of PC games sales in the US are made through Steam, and that Valve uses that dominance to take an extraordinarily high cut from nearly every sale
that passes through its store 30%.
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