A Triumphant Return? Epic Games Submits Fortnite to US App Store for Approval
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Epic Games announced on Friday that it has submitted Fortnite to US App Store for approval by Apple. If Apple grants approval for the submission, it will mark the first time the game will be available to iPhone and iPad gamers in the United States since 2020.
As you’d likely suspect, the newly submitted Fortnite app will include the ability to purchase in-app currency from a website rather than via the App Store’s traditional in-app purchase method, which is basically what caused the dispute between Epic Games and Apple so many years ago, leading to the lengthy legal wrangling between the two companies.
While Apple mostly prevailed in its fight with Epic, it lost on one point and seems to have done so repeatedly. When the dust settled on the original case in 2021, Apple was left with an injunction that ordered it to allow developers to include links and buttons in their apps that would direct customers to purchase options on their websites — outside the App Store. Apple appealed that all the way to the Supreme Court, but when the dust settled it was forced to comply with the injunction. However, it did so by figuring out a way to charge a 27% commission and make things very complicated for developers who wanted to take advantage of it.
Last month, a US District Judge said that wasn’t good enough, and ordered Apple to remove all restrictions on developers adding external payment methods — and charge zero commission. Apple is now fighting to get the new injunction paused while it appeals that decision, but in the meantime, it’s been forced to open things up.
While these new developer freedoms would also technically apply to Epic Games, allowing them to return Fortnite to the App Store, there’s still an issue that needs to be dealt with. You see, the Epic Games US developer account was terminated in 2020 when Epic chose to breach its contract with Apple by sneaking in-app purchases into Fortnite — the event that started the entire legal battle.
Nothing in any of the court rulings since then has required Apple to reinstate Epic’s developer account. The latest ruling doesn’t even mention Epic Games except as the party that brought the case to the court.
Happily for Epic, the developer has a Swedish developer account it could use to submit Fortnite to the US App Store. Apple grudgingly allowed Epic to create the account last year to comply with the Digital Markets Act, as the new law gives Epic Games the right to open its own app marketplace in the European Union to compete with the App Store.
Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney has said Apple is aware of his company submitting the game via its Swedish subsidiary. However, he did not share whether or not Apple was okay with the chess move, so there is a small possibility that Apple may reject the submission. Earlier this week, Sweeney said he would be “very surprised” if Apple “decided to brave the geopolitical storm of blocking a major app from iOS.”
While there is a slim possibility that Apple may indeed reject the Fortnite submission, it may be reluctant to do so, as it will run the risk of further angering US District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers, who is overseeing the case. It should be noted that Apple has already approved app several app updates with external purchase links from Spotify, Amazon Kindle, Patreon, and others. Of course, these apps were never banned from the App Store in the first place.
The injunction Judge Rogers issued last week largely re-established the one from her original 2021 ruling in the case, which Rogers had ruled that Apple had failed to comply with. The new injunction imposed additional limitations as a result of Apple’s attempts to circumvent the original one, but the spirit of the injunction remained essentially unchanged.
Apple earlier this week filed an emergency motion asking the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals to put on hold several key portions of Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers ruling that makes drastic changes to the operation of the Apple App Store. Apple has asked for a speedy ruling from the appeals court, requesting one be handed down by May 28. That said, the changes to the purchase links in apps will remain in place until the apellate court makes a ruling.
