The UK has just passed a new law that will open up Apple to sideloading and third party app stores.
As reported by Video Games Chronicle, this is just one of many laws the UK government has fast tracked, Current events in their politics are requiring them to pass these laws now, because they’ll get cancelled if they don’t do it on time.
Their Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers (DMCC) Bill actually affects several industries aside from mobile and video games. But what’s relevant to us is that UK lawmakers copied provisions in the EU’s Digital Markets Act.
If you may remember, that law went into effect for European countries all the way back in December 2022. It’s forced Apple to allow sideloading of apps, and even the opening of third party stores, on their platforms.
It must be said that even after being given sufficient time to implement these DMA rules, the EU still finds that Apple is not properly following them. We did kind of expect Apple to resist following the DMA every step of the way, as that’s been their modus operandi still Steve Jobs introduced the iPhone.
But, the EU announced just last March that they would be investigating Apple, as well as Meta and Google, for not following the DMA. So as much as Apple hates being forced to be taken to heel, they are going to have to comply to stay in the EU.
Epic already revealed that they would bring Fortnite back to Apple devices in the EU, with their own Epic Games Store mobile app. And long running rumors that Microsoft was preparing their own app store, got complicated even further, with new rumors that Sony is working on the same thing.
The UK isn’t quite as big a video game market as the EU, but they’re certainly one of the biggest in the world. If the UK and EU manage to force Apple and other companies to comply, even slowly, other countries will certainly want to follow suit.
We won’t speculate on how the US will want to do the same thing. But much like the EU and the UK, they will likely have to pass new laws for this purpose, as their existing laws and rules aren’t likely to be enough to also compel companies to open up to sideloading and third party app stores.
So it may take some time for Fortnite to return to Apple devices in the US. But by the time it’s happened, Apple and Android may also have launched their Xbox and PlayStation apps too. It’s crazy to think about how rapidly things could be changing for video games, in spite of Apple’s best efforts.
