Apple Effectively Bans Fortnite From the App Store for Five Years

Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney revealed that Apple has rejected the company’s request to re-instate Epic’s developer account, effectively banning Fortnite from returning to the App Store following the legal battle between Epic and Apple.

Sweeney revealed on social media this morning a letter sent to him by Apple rejecting Epic’s request to have its developer program account reinstated. An Apple Developer Account is required to develop and deliver apps on iOS.

Furthermore, Apple says it will not consider requests to reinstate Epic’s account “until the district court’s judgment becomes final and non-appealable,” which Sweeney says could be as long as five years.

Late last night, Apple informed Epic that Fortnite will be blacklisted from the Apple ecosystem until the exhaustion of all court appeals, which could be as long as a 5-year process. pic.twitter.com/QCD7wogJef

— Tim Sweeney (@TimSweeneyEpic) September 22, 2021

This all began when Epic pushed back against Apple’s payment 30% fee taken from every digital transaction in Fortnite. Epic protested by offering its own payment option in the iOS app, which led to a snowball effect where Apple removed Fortnite from iOS devices which led to Epic suing Apple. During this time Epic lost its Apple Developer Account and Fortnite remains unavailable on Apple devices.

The lawsuit itself eventually went to trial and the judge ruled that external payment systems should be allowed on apps available in the App Store. And while that may seem like a win for Epic, the judge also ruled Epic Games breached its contract with Apple and was ordered to pay Apple $6 million in fines.

Epic says it will appeal parts of the ruling, specifically the ones where Epic lost, but the court has previously stated that Apple’s termination of Epic’s developer account was valid and lawful.

Sweeney says it will continue to fight Apple on this and says Apple has broken its promise to welcome Fortnite back to the App Store if it agreed to play by the rules, which Epic argues is now the case given the court's ruling on allowing custom payment methods.

In any case, if you thought the Epic v. Apple situation has concluded, think again.

Matt T.M. Kim is IGN's News Editor. You can reach him @lawoftd.

source https://www.ign.com/articles/apple-fortnite-ban-five-years-epic-games-tim-sweeney