Fortnite Returns to US App Store
After a nearly five-year hiatus, Fortnite is back on the App Store for iPhone and iPad users in the United States. Epic Games announced the return of the battle royale gaming app this afternoon, and you can head to the App Store now to download it.
Fortnite is also back in the Epic Games Store and AltStore in the European Union.
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The situation took another turn yesterday when Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers said the Apple official “personally responsible for ensuring compliance” would have to appear in court if Epic and Apple failed to resolve the matter. That person would need to be “fully prepared to answer any questions on the topic” during a hearing on May 27.
The craziest thing about this entire saga is that Apple won the original lawsuit on 9/10 or 10/11 points, depending on how you count them.
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All Apple had to do was allow apps to link out to the web, which clearly should have been allowed since forever ago — link-outs were the antitrust/competition escape valve — and they’d have swept the entire Epic lawsuit and it would have been over four years ago.
Honestly, YGR seems like kind of a hypocrite. It doesn’t make any sense that the judge allowed Apple to ban Epic’s US developer accounts—indeed they’re still banned!—but then magically use a developer account from the EU.
This inconsistency may help Apple on appeal.
The judge’s reasoning remains unspecified. I posted a guess the other day, which is that this is all the result of a combination of the US and EU cases. YGR found that Apple could ban both Epic’s US and Swedish developer accounts. But she also found that Apple can’t block Fortnite for linking out. With the EU ensuring that Epic has the Swedish account, that creates a route to both submit the app and have it not be rejected (so long as it follows the rules). One of these is that it does have to offer IAP.
It is both wild that it has been nearly five years since Fortnite left the App Store – but far more wild that Epic has kept up the battle this long, despite what must be billions in lost revenue. It’s easy to get lost in the day-to-day of this back-and-forth, but just take a step back: Fortnite is one of the, if not the, biggest games of the world. And it wasn’t on the largest platform for half a decade.
And now it’s back. I would argue – as I have been for the past five years – that it’s the direct result of a calculated long-game maneuver by Tim Sweeney. Per above, it could not have been worth it, monetarily, obviously. Even with the ability to accept payments on the web, saving Epic from Apple’s 30% cut, it will take years to earn back that lost revenue – if they ever do, because you have to assume most customers will still choose to use Apple’s in-app payment mechanisms!
That’s one of the silliest things about all of this. Had Apple just agreed to compete for the customer’s wallet here, they undoubtedly would have won most of the time – yes, even with the 30% cut. Because convenience often trumps cost, and Apple’s system is seamless and very well done!
Hats off to Tim Sweeney. He played the long game and won a victory for the entire industry.
Previously:
- Epic Files Motion to Enforce Injunction
- Fortnite “Blocked”
- Apple Appeals Epic Anti-Steering Injunction
- Fortnite Coming Back to the App Store?
- Court Orders Apple to Comply With Anti-Steering Injunction
- Apple to Cut Epic Off From iOS and Mac Developer Tools
- Epic Direct Payment
Update (2025-05-23): Kyle Howells:
The funny thing is it’s in the EU AppStore, and the US AppStore, but not the UK AppStore and the UK doesn’t get 3rd party AppStores or side loading. So it isn’t back in the UK yet.
I still mentally assume any EU news will apply here too, but of course since Brexit that isn’t the case, and Apple obviously won’t give an inch anywhere they aren’t absolutely legally forced to do so.
Update (2025-06-04): Jay Peters:
“I had actually hoped that we would get an injunction against Apple blocking Fortnite and that we’d only be off for a few weeks,” Sweeney tells The Verge. “But the court process dragged out, and we were off for five years.”
Since its iOS return, Fortnite seems to be having a lot of success on the platform. As I write this, it’s the top free game in the App Store. There have been about 10 million downloads on iOS since it came back on May 20th.
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> Had Apple just agreed to compete for the customer’s wallet here, they undoubtedly
> would have won most of the time – yes, even with the 30% cut.
If the prices of both IAP and web were forced to be the same, then yes.
Another similar situation right now is selling on Amazon. Last time I looked into it, they forced you to set prices on Amazon to be no higher than other marketplaces you also worked with, even though Amazon has the highest fees.
Other marketplaces could overcome Amazon's convenience with lower prices - they (and Apple) absolutely know this, and so have set in place these types of bullshit policies.
@Kristoffer yeah that's why I can't help but keep reading him all these years, he really cuts through a lot of the BS and understands how these people think.
Also can't help but feel a little validated on this particular issue that he often wrote nearly verbatim exactly what I was thinking, but of course managed to phrase it and explain it a lot better.
> Hats off to Tim Sweeney. He played the long game and won a victory for the entire industry.
So many commentators in the Apple world have trouble admitting this. So they’ll complain about Sweeney being a blowhard in one sentence right before celebrating Apple’s defeat on this.
But both things can be true. Sweeney might not be one’s cup of tea and still: he was right about this 5 years ago and he’s still right today. He proved everyone who thought he was being dumb back then wrong. And in the process he’s helping make the Apple ecosystem better.
