News Apple is still standing in the way of Epic’s app store

[News]

Illustration: Alex Castro / The Verge

The dream of a successful Epic Games Store on iOS sounds like an oasis: a thriving alternative app store that exists outside Apple’s walled gardens, where developers won’t have to pay Apple’s much steeper commission for in-app purchases, and where they can use whatever payment processor they want.

Epic’s store launched last week in the European Union — thanks to new regulations opening up iOS — and it’s likely to be a boon for Epic and its perennial hit, Fortnite. But it’s not clear whether Epic will be able to grow the store far beyond its own games. The company wants to welcome in a vibrant ecosystem of third-party developers, but moving to the Epic Games Store could be an impossible ask for any company that doesn’t make Fortnite-sized...

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