Their target demographic is kids whose brains haven't developed yet and are unable to resist buying shiny digital things with their parents' credit cards and Epic makes sure to add as little resistance as possible. It's no surprise they wanted to add their own payment system to Fornite on iOS: Apple's has too much friction and parental controls to prevent abuse like this. The commission Apple collected was just a drop in the big bucket they were after.
From the FTC blog post:
>The FTC alleges that with millions of consumers’ credit cards conveniently in hand, Epic failed to adequately explain its billing practices to customers and designed its interface in ways that led to unauthorized charges. You’ll want to read the complaint for details, but here are a few of the dark patterns the company allegedly used.
>According to the complaint, Epic set up its payment system so that it saved by default the credit card that was associated with the account. That meant that kids could buy V-Bucks – the virtual currency necessary to make in-game purchases – with the simple press of a button. No separate cardholder consent was required.
Scum. Glad Apple booted them from the App Store and the courts sided with Apple.
From the FTC blog post:
>The FTC alleges that with millions of consumers’ credit cards conveniently in hand, Epic failed to adequately explain its billing practices to customers and designed its interface in ways that led to unauthorized charges. You’ll want to read the complaint for details, but here are a few of the dark patterns the company allegedly used.
>According to the complaint, Epic set up its payment system so that it saved by default the credit card that was associated with the account. That meant that kids could buy V-Bucks – the virtual currency necessary to make in-game purchases – with the simple press of a button. No separate cardholder consent was required.
Scum. Glad Apple booted them from the App Store and the courts sided with Apple.