The year of 2021 will forever be known as the year that Epic Games and Apple faced off in one of the most high stakes legal cases in recent memory. While the “war” seems to have fizzled out after the final ruling from a Federal Judge, Apple does appear to be content with the conclusion. After being given a 90 day deadline for an injunction in which Apple must allow developers to include buttons or links for users to make purchases outside of the app store, the company revealed that it might expand on their commission structure in order to deter developers from taking advantage of this new ruling. This is also part of their appeals case, which they filed this past Tuesday to reverse the decision from the trial.

Apple threatens commissions on in-app purchases outside the App Store https://t.co/z4Zu6QwvTH

— CNET (@CNET) December 3, 2021

According to the appeals case, Apple states that “substantial engineering” complicates the comply with the ruling, as they still offer numerous facets such as parental controls and purchase authorizations. To this end, Apple is requesting that the appeals court delay the Federal Judges injunction until the ruling for the appeals case has been heard. That injunction is set to commence on a tentative date of December 8, which is less than one week away. As we already mentioned, the injunction was a result of the Federal Judge’s final ruling, which forced Apple to allow the developers of titles on their platform to offer other alleyways and avenues of making in-game purchases.

While it doesn’t seem like much, this little tidbit is actually the last thing Apple wants, as it could potentially undermine their entire app store contractual obligations. Any purchase made in the app store immediately takes 30% of the revenue from the developer and is given to Apple. This system has been in place since 2008, and was the one major catalyst for Epic Games to initiate the lawsuit to begin with. Apple’s attempt to appeal, and threaten with restructured commission fee is, in a way, their last attempt at keeping total control over the app store.

Should the appeals court make a ruling by next week, then this entire situation could change completely. However, the appeals court has not responded to Apple’s request, which indicates that they will not have a ruling by then. At that point, Apple might have no choice but to comply with the Federal injunction and allow developers to offer other ways to make in-game purchases.