Fortnite Is Returning to the iOS App Store

Sabrina Carpenters of the world, rejoice! Fortnite is coming back to iPhones. A judge in California ruled that Apple willfully violated a court order back in 2020 when they removed Epic Games as a developer from the iOS App Store. And the ruling is salty! Apple’s continued attempts to interfere with competition will not be tolerated,” Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers wrote. “This is an injunction, not a negotiation. There are no do-overs once a party willfully disregards a court order…The Court will not tolerate further delays.”

Epic and Apple have been beefing since August 2020, when the video game developer accused the tech behemoth of being an “unlawful monopoly” by taxing devs 30% of their online purchases. Epic filed an antitrust suit, and Apple wound up deleting Epic’s account from the App store. Sounds shady, no? The court agrees. “Apple will not impede competition. The Court enjoins Apple from implementing its new anticompetitive acts to avoid compliance with the Injunction. Effective immediately Apple will no longer impede developers’ ability to communicate with users nor will they levy or impose a new commission on off-app purchases,” Rogers wrote. She also accused Apple’s VP of Finance Alex Roman of lying under oath, writing “Apple knew exactly what it was doing and at every turn chose the most anticompetitive option.”

Epic Games founder Tim Sweeney did a victory lap on Twitter. “We will return Fortnite to the US iOS App Store next week,” he wrote. “Epic puts forth a peace proposal: 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.”

• [variety]

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