By WYATTE GRANTHAM-PHILIPS and MICHAEL LIEDTKE, Related Press
NEW YORK (AP) — Fortnite says it’s now unavailable on Apple’s iOS globally as a result of the tech big blocked a bid to launch the favored online game for iPhone customers within the U.S. and Europe.
“Apple has blocked our Fortnite submission so we cannot release to the U.S. App Store or to the Epic Games Store for iOS in the European Union,” Epic Video games-owned Fortnite wrote on X, the platform previously referred to as Twitter, early Friday — claiming that Apple’s transfer would now forestall the sport’s iOS availability world wide.
“Sadly, Fortnite on iOS will be offline worldwide until Apple unblocks it,” Fortnite mentioned.
In a press release despatched to The Related Press, Apple mentioned it had particularly requested Epic Sweden to resubmit the app replace “without including the U.S. storefront of the App Store so as not to impact Fortnite in other geographies.” However, the corporate added, it “did not take any action to remove the live version of Fortnite from alternative distribution marketplaces.”
Fortnite’s exile from the iPhone app retailer is the newest twist in a yearslong feud between Apple and Epic. Again in 2020, the online game maker filed an antitrust lawsuit in opposition to Apple within the U.S., alleging the expertise trendsetter was illegally utilizing its energy to gouge recreation makers.
After a monthlong trial in 2021, U.S. District Decide Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers dominated in opposition to most of Epic’s claims, however ordered Apple to loosen its previously-exclusive management over the funds made for in-app commerce and permit hyperlinks to different choices within the U.S. for the primary time — threatening to undercut sizeable commissions that Apple had been amassing from in-app transactions for over a decade.
After exhausting an enchantment that went all the way in which to the U.S. Supreme Courtroom, Apple final yr launched a brand new system that opened the door for hyperlinks to different cost choices whereas nonetheless imposing a 27% fee on in-app transactions executed exterior its personal system.
Epic fired again by alleging Apple was thumbing its nostril on the authorized system, reviving one other spherical of courtroom hearings that lasted practically a yr earlier than Gonzalez Rogers delivered a stinging rebuke final month — which held Apple in civil contempt and banned the corporate from amassing any fee on different cost programs.
That ruling cleared the way in which for Epic to lastly return to the iPhone app retailer within the U.S., a reinstatement the online game maker was anticipating earlier than Apple’s newest transfer.
Fortnite’s availability within the EU, in the meantime, was set to go in an alternate retailer for iPhone customers — now referred to as the Epic Video games Retailer. Apple final yr cleared the way in which for this final yr beneath new regulatory pressures.
Liedtke reported from San Francisco.
Initially Revealed: Could 16, 2025 at 12:04 PM EDT
