Facebook and Microsoft’s complaints about how their gaming apps appear on the Apple App Store is likely to lead to an European Union (EU) investigation into the iPhone maker’s company. EU antitrust regulators have said these issues are on their radar.
The European Commission had launched four probes into Apple in June. 3 of them are directed at its App Store and its restrictive laws, including requirements that app developers use their own in-app purchasing system.
US social media giant Facebook and Microsoft are the latest companies to raise concerns about the rules that have targeted app developers who say that these restrictions are creating an unequal playing field to compete with the iPhone maker.
“The Commission is aware of these concerns regarding Apple’s App Store rules,” said the EU Commission spokeswoman Arianna Podesta on being asked about Microsoft and Facebook’s issue with Apple. She declined to provide any further details.
Apple has dismissed criticism of its regulations on the App Store, saying that all applications are tested against the same set of standards aimed at protecting consumers while providing developers with a fair and equitable ground.
Last week Facebook said its gaming app is only available as a streaming service on Apple’s App Store, so users won’t be able to play games.
In order to gain Apple’s Gaming approval Facebook had to fully eliminate game play functionality, according to Facebook’s Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg.
“Apple stands alone as the only general purpose platform to deny consumers from cloud gaming and game subscription services like Xbox Game Pass. It consistently treats gaming apps differently, applying more lenient rules to non-gaming apps even when they include interactive content”, said Microsoft which has a game-streaming service called Project xCloud.
