Great news for Fortnite fans! After three years of Apple suspending Epic Games’ developer account, the game is making a comeback to the App Store—but only in the EU.
This is happening thanks to new rules in the EU, which let Epic Games run its own app store and use its own payment system. Apple suspended Epic Games’ developer account back in August 2020 because Epic broke several App Store rules. This led to a long legal battle between the two companies. Apple even tried to shut down Epic’s developer account for the Unreal Engine, but a judge stopped that. It would have been bad for users because many games rely on this engine.
Own Epic game store
With the Digital Markets Act about to kick in within the EU, Apple can’t stop Epic Games anymore. Epic Games announced, “We’ve got our Apple Developer Account back and are getting ready to create the Epic Games Store for iOS, all thanks to the new Digital Markets Act.” They’re planning to launch their own app store in 2024. The Epic Games Store for mobile and Fortnite will be managed from Sweden in Europe, where Epic Games has three game studios and over sixty employees. We’re still waiting for the exact date when the game will be back.
Epic CEO Tim Sweeney still isn’t happy with how things are going. He thinks Apple allowing third-party app stores is “not good” and a “bad idea.” He believes Apple is trying to follow the rules in a tricky way that’s not fair. As a result, Apple might make less money from developers because they can’t stop them from using other payment methods anymore. However, Apple wants to charge a fee of 50 cents per installation for apps that get over 1 million installs each year.
Emma Waterhouse
Writer and Editor-in-Chief at SereneWings
