Epic Games – the company behind gaming sensation Fortnite – has wasted no time in getting back at Apple in what is fast becoming a bitter feud.
On Thursday, it was revealed Fortnite had been booted off the App Store, after it implemented an in-app payment system that bypassed Apple’s standard 30 per cent fee.
Epic Games has already revealed it is suing Apple in a civiil antitrust lawsuit, accusing the iPhone-maker of unlawfully maintaining monopoly power.
And Epic Games’s response didn’t stop there.
The company is parodying on one of Apple’s most famous adverts ever in a new short film dubbed ‘Nineteen Eighty-Fortnite’.
“Epic Games has defied the App Store Monopoly. In retaliation, Apple is blocking Fortnite from a billion devices,” the ad says.
“Join the fight to stop 2020 from becoming ‘1984’.”
The ad also not-so-subtly depicts an apple as the Big Brother character.
As well as comparing Apple’s ecosystem with the totalitarianism regiment in the George Orwell novel, the ad is also a direct reference to one of Apple’s most famous campaigns.
‘1984’ is the Ridley Scott-directed Super Bowl ad which introduced the Apple Macintosh personal computer to the world.
You can see the similarities here.
Following its Super Bowl appearance, the estate of George Orwell sent a cease-and-desist letter to Apple citing a flagrant copyright infringement.
