Apple was accused of stifling competition among gaming offerings for iOS devices by restricting access to services provided by rival platforms and imposing higher pricing for its game subscription service Apple Arcade, Bloomberg reported.

The complaint, filed in a US federal court, alleged the company is monopolising the market by not allowing users to download services by companies such as Microsoft, Google and Facebook after introducing its in-house gaming service in September 2019, the media outlet noted.

As a result, users reportedly had less options to choose from and had to pay higher prices for using Apple Arcade instead of being able to opt for an alternative gaming service.

Apple blocked offerings, such as Microsoft’s Xbox cloud gaming service xCloud and Google Stadia, earlier this year, defending the move with its policy requiring games to be individually submitted and reviewed instead of consisting of multiple gaming titles within a single service.

At the end of August, Apple made a step to let developers suggest changes to its guidelines and lodge appeals if their apps are judged to violate the marketplace’s rules.