Epic Games, the company behind Fortnite, and Apple have been feuding in court for over five years now over Apple's unfair policy of taking a 30% commission on all in-app purchases made through the App Store.
In August 2020, Apple made the bold move of removing Fortnite from the App Store after Epic added the option for users to buy V-Bucks directly from the company, bypassing Apple's 30% cut. After almost five years, Fortnite might finally be coming back to the App Store, with Apple taking the fall this time around.
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Apple is in hot water this time around
Just a few hours ago, Apple was accused by a US Supreme Court judge of "willfully" dodging previous court orders that required Apple to allow developers to link to third-party payment options. The Supreme Court judge, Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers, ruled that Apple must direct its efforts toward making changes to its App Store, which includes not taking commissions from developers on purchases made through third-party services.
Of course, this completely flips the story for Epic Games, with them finally getting what they've wanted since day one of the legal battle. Tim Sweeney, the CEO of Epic Games, announced via a post on X that Fortnite will be returning to the iOS App Store in the United States next week.
He goes on to mention that Epic will return Fortnite to the App Store worldwide if Apple complies with the court's ruling that voids the 15–30% tax Apple charges in the United States, just as it is in Europe under the Digital Markets Act (DMA). Fortnite has already returned to iOS in the European Union via Epic's own mobile app store. Unfortunately, this isn’t available in the US.
Epic is far from the only company that has been feuding with Apple’s unjust commission practices on in-app purchases and subscriptions. Spotify is a prime example of this, with the company having permanently discontinued the option of subscribing to Premium via Apple’s in-app payment system.
At last, it’s great to see Epic finally getting a ruling in its favor, and Apple finally being forced to play fair.