Fortnite has returned to Apple and iOS.
The official Fortnite Twitter account made this announcement:
Fortnite is BACK on the App Store in the U.S. on iPhones and iPads… and on the Epic Games Store and AltStore in the E.U! It’ll show up in Search soon!
Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney shared this message on his Twitter:
Thanks to everyone who supported the effort to open up mobile competition and #FreeFortnite from the very beginning. And thanks to all of the folks who initially sided with Apple then later came around to the winning side, supporting app developer rights and consumer rights.
This comes five years after Fortnite was first removed on both iOS and Android. Epic Games raised questions about the 30 % revenue cut Apple and Alphabet take from third party developers, and eventually chose to put themselves on the line to test these boundaries Apple and Alphabet made.
In August 2020, Epic added external payment options on Fortnite, that would allow them to make money without sharing that revenue cut with Apple and Alphabet. Fortnite was then pulled from both iOS and Android, and Epic proceeded to take both platform holders to court.
Jumping to last month, Epic Games went to the judge on the Apple case to put their foot to the fire. California district judge Yvonne Gonzales Rogers ordered Apple to follow the spirit of her ruling over external payment options. She found that Apple attempting to force a secret 27 % revenue cut from external payments was openly defying her ruling.
And yet, even after this order, Apple was still defying Judge Rogers by refusing to review Fortnite for approval again. Judge Rogers then gave Apple a show cause order, saying that they would have to bring the employee responsible for compliance to her court to personally explain their actions.
Outside of the clear drama of Apple refusing to comply with the courts, Fortnite’s return to Apple will be huge for Fortnite fans. Today iPhone and iPad are considerably bigger platforms for gaming, thanks to Apple Arcade and the entry of PlayStation Remote Play on iPhone. A range of controllers, including the DualShock, DualSense, Xbox controllers, Razer Kishi, and the Backbone, are all natively supported on iPhone and iPad. Apple has also been subsidizing ports of many AAA games to iPhone, including Assassin’s Creed Mirage and Resident Evil Village.
But now that Apple is legally obliged to allow developers to sell games on iPhone without sharing revenue, more games with different revenue models will be coming into their platforms. We noticed that Sarah Bond has been quiet about bringing the Xbox App onto iPhone, but they may simply be biding their time until they’re sure they can do it. Here and now, Fortnite players can tell their friends to load up their phones so they can play together.
