“It’s just a banana, ma’am”.
As the trial for Epic v. Apple entered its second week, both parties took a break from antitrust law to argue over whether bananas should wear clothes in court.
The banana in question is Peely, a humanoid fruit avatar from Epic’s game Fortnite. Fortnite, as you may remember, is at the center of the huge lawsuit between Apple and Epic. The trial’s sixth day began with testimony from Matthew Weissinger, Epic’s VP of marketing. And Apple used its cross-examination to offer the court an exhaustive tutorial on Fortnite, beginning with its title screen and one of its skins. Hence the banana:
Apple attorney: We have in front of us a new set of images, and what is this screen showing?
Weissinger: This is your matchmaking UFABET.
Attorney: And we have a large yellow banana here, don’t we? In a tuxedo?
Weissinger: Yes. That is Peely.
Attorney: And that’s Peely, did you say?
Weissinger: Yeah.
Attorney: And in fact, in the tuxedo, he’s known as Agent Peely, correct?
Weissinger: That’s correct.
Attorney: We thought it better to go with the suit than the naked banana, since we are in federal court this morning.
Peely’s nightmarish existence is barely related to Apple’s case. And the “naked banana” comment would probably have passed for a throwaway joke, but for one very important fact: Apple slammed Epic last week by claiming that it hosted porn.
On Friday, an Apple attorney went after indie storefront Itch.io, which Epic lets users install through the Epic Games Store. The attorney noted that Itch.io included “so-called adult games” whose descriptions were “not appropriate for us to speak in federal courts,” calling them “both offensive and sexualized.”