Fortnite, the beloved battle royale game that took the gaming world by storm, may be on its way back to one of the world’s largest mobile platforms, iOS.
This is according to Tim Sweeney, the CEO of Epic Games, the game’s developer.
Fortnite has been missing on the Apple App Store, thereby limiting its access to Apple devices such as the iPhone, iPad and Macs, since August 2020. This was after its developer instituted its own in-app payment mechanism that bypassed Apple, which is usually enforced via the App Store.
Apple famously takes a 30% cut, from developer earnings on app sales and in-app purchases, something that many, are usually salty about. The way others, like Twitter, have gone about that is by increasing their subscription or other necessary fees by a similar markup in order to accommodate Apple’s cut, popularly referred to as the “Apple Tax”.
Others, like Twitter again, have also offered their users a web-based subscription option away from the App Store but without redirecting users from the app on devices, something that, like in Epic Games’ case, would run afoul of the binding terms and conditions and other contractual obligations that the developer(s) are bound to by the app store owner.
Apple cited a breach of contract as grounds for the eventual termination of Epic Games’ App Store developer account a year after Apple kicked out Fortnite from the App Store. In a letter by Apple’s attorney to Epic Games, the company said that it would only reinstate Epic Games’ developer account after an ongoing court case had run its course. The court case had been initiated by Epic Games which was accusing the Cupertino-based company of monopoly tendencies in the way it run its App Store.
It is not clear in which way or form Fortnite will be coming back to the iPhone and other Apple devices.
In September 2021, a US court judge ruled that Apple could not stop developers from notifying users of their apps and games of existing alternative means of subscribing and paying for their services outside the App Store.
