After a long battle with Apple, Epic Games’ Fortnite is finally coming back to the iPhone, but only in select markets.
As announced in a tweet from Fortnite, it said: “Later this year Fortnite will return in Europe on iOS through the @EpicGames Store. (shoutout DMA - an important new law in the EU making this possible). @Apple, the world is watching.” As the UK is in Europe but not in the EU, players there won’t be getting one of Epic’s most successful games.
For those unfamiliar, Fortnite was originally taken off the App Store in August 2020 due to the high fees that the App Store takes from in-app purchases. When Epic tried to work around this, Fortnite was taken off the Store and the two tech giants have been locked in a legal battle ever since.
Tim Sweeney’s response
Epic Games plans on releasing its own app store on devices, which allows it to distribute games and take 100% of the income made from microtransactions in said games. Apple requires a huge letter of credit for those app stores to be created, disincentivizing creating one in the first place. Tim Sweeney took to Twitter to say:
“Apple's plan to thwart Europe's new Digital Markets Act law is a devious new instance of Malicious Compliance. They are forcing developers to choose between App Store exclusivity and the store terms, which will be illegal under DMA, or accept a new also-illegal anticompetitive scheme rife with new Junk Fees on downloads and new Apple taxes on payments they don't process.”
In this post, Tim Sweeney cites Epic’s 0-12% store fees and its exclusive games for its popularity and claims he wants it to become the “#1 multi-platform software store”. Though the initial legal battle is done, it seems like this fight is far from over.
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