The biggest gaming industry trial of its history has recently started, Epic Games v Apple, but it started with a rather chaotic public conference call.
At the start of the trial, a public line was opened so that anyone can dial in, as in ANYONE, so that they can listen to the proceedings. The only problem was that they forgot to mute the other end of the line, which was flooded by the fans of popular battle royale game Fortnite.
Media outlet The Verge reported that the phone line had more than 200 individuals dialing in to listen to the trial. When some people learned that they could actually talk on the line, some of the fans screamed the phrase “Free Fortnite” while others pleaded with the judge to allow the game to come back on mobile devices. Others took advantage to promote their YouTube channels. In a word, it became chaos.
A Twitter post by Quartz reporter Nicolas Rivero shared a short recording of what was heard during the conference call.
After many failed attempts by the court clerks, the calls were finally muted and the proceedings of the Epic Games v Apple trial finally started. It was actually delayed by 15 minutes to get things in order.
Thanks Eurogamer!