In August 2020, Apple kicked Fortnite off of the iOS App Store for violating its terms after Epic Games bypassed Apple’s 30% transaction fee by adding its own payment processor to the battle royale game. Almost five years later, Fortnite is finally available on the US App Store again.
The return isn’t entirely triumphant for Epic, but at this point Epic CEO Tim Sweeney is ready for a truce.
After the 2020 stunt that saw Fortnite get the boot, Sweeney took Apple to court over its insistence that iOS app developers use only Apple’s payment processor—and pay its fee—and emerged with a partial victory.
The court did not give Epic what it really wanted, which was to make Apple let iOS app developers include their own in-app payment options, but it did say that Apple couldn’t stop them from directing users to external websites to make purchases.
Apple wasn’t willing to cede even that much ground, though. It ‘complied’ with the order by implementing a new fee that applies to out-of-app purchases and finding new ways to warn users against using third-party payment options.
Epic protested, and in April of this year Apple was seriously reprimanded by the court, which said that the iPhone maker’s compliance “strains credulity” and insisted that it immediately stop interfering with out-of-app purchases.
That was good enough for Sweeney, who called for peace. “If Apple extends the court’s friction-free, Apple-tax-free framework worldwide, we’ll return Fortnite to the App Store worldwide and drop current and future litigation on the topic,” said the CEO.
Despite insistence from the court that it “will not tolerate further delays,” Apple still withheld approval of Epic’s Fortnite resubmission, leading to more protestation from Epic until today, when Sweeney finally announced that the game has returned to iOS devices, tweeting “we back fam.”
Apple and Epic have told the court that they’ve resolved their differences (for now at least), and Fortnite is once again available in the US App Store. It is also available in Europe on the mobile version of the Epic Games Store, which Epic can operate on iOS in Europe and not the US due to EU regulations. (It’s also on another third-party iOS app store called AltStore.)
As Epic prepared for its return to the App Store after the court’s ruling, it offered players a 20% bonus for making purchases through its payment system rather than Apple’s.
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