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Epic’s barrister Garry Rich, SC, showed Justice Beach the first warning, that the Epic Games app “might be harmful” before they could proceed. The security warnings, which pop up whenever anyone tries to install apps that don’t come from Google’s Play Store, are so numerous and so strongly worded that if they “don’t prevent over 90 per cent of users from sideloading … then we have failed,” said one internal Google email read out by Mr Rich.
Fortnite, one of the most popular and profitable video games in history, was booted off the Apple App Store in August 2020 after Epic tried to lure customers to its own website, rather than the App Store, to make payments for games., accusing Apple of using illegal contracts rather than technical restrictions and payments, to stifle competition for app stores and for payments processing.