In August 2020, a throw-down between 2 of the world’s biggest companies began with Epic Games (Fortnite) bringing a lawsuit against Apple relating to the company’s practices on the App Store. The fallout from the case has been quite hard on Epic as Tim Sweeny, CEO of Epic Games, revealed on Twitter that Apple has refused the company’s request to reinstate Epic Games’ developer account on the App Store.
The direct result of this is that Fortnite will remain banned from the App Store, and this could be the case for up to 5 years. Sweeny revealed that Apple informed Epic that Fortnite will be blacklisted from mthe Apple ecosystem until the “exhaustion of all court appeals”, which could be as long as a 5-year process.
This, according to Sweeney, was after Epic agreed to “play by the same rules as everyone else”, in order for Fortnite to be reinstated on the App Store.
Fortnite blacklisted from the App Store, Apple refuses to reinstate Epic’s developer account
Just last week, Epic agreed with Apple that we would play by the same rules as everyone else. pic.twitter.com/WOxsbnAFXE
— Tim Sweeney (@TimSweeneyEpic) September 22, 2021
While the prevailing feeling in the community was that with the Epic v Apple trial coming to an end, all of the conflict will finally be put to an end. Yet, it appears to not be the case as Epic will continue to fight Apple on this.
One of Sweeney’s statements stood out in particular on Twitter, as he explained that by Apple doing this, it is inflicting a loss on fair competition and consumer choice. Referring to the loss of Fortnite as an iOS metaverse competitor alongside Roblox and PUBG Mobile – which adversely affects the evolution of “the new medium of our era”.
Apple has seemingly confirmed the authenticity of the email shared by Tim on Twitter, but declined to comment any further.
