Apple v Epic

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Fortnite will return to iOS as court slams Apple’s “interference“ and ”cover-up“

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In a statement provided to Ars Technica, an Apple spokesperson said, “We strongly disagree with the decision. We will comply with the court’s order and we will appeal.”

An Epic return

With the new court order in place, Epic says it will once again submit a version of Fortnite to the iOS App Store in the US in the next week or so. That new version will offer players the option to use standard Apple App Store payments or its own, cheaper “Epic Direct Payment” system to purchase in-game currency and items.

That would mirror the system that was briefly in place for iOS players in August 2020, when Epic added alternate payment options to iOS Fortnite in intentional violation of what were then Apple’s store policies. Apple removed Fortnite from the iOS App Store hours later, setting off a legal battle that seems to finally be reaching its conclusion.

For those few hours when Epic Direct Payments were available on iOS Fortnite in 2020, Sweeney said that about 50 percent of customers “decided to give Epic a shot,” going through an additional step to register and pay through an Epic account on a web page outside the app itself (and saving 20 percent on their purchase in the process). The other roughly 50 percent of customers decided to pay a higher price in exchange for the convenience of paying directly in the app through the iOS account they already had set up, Sweeney said. “Consumers were making the choice… and it was a wonderful thing to see,” he said.

Speaking to the press Wednesday night, Sweeney said the new court order was a “huge victory for developers” looking to offer their own payment service alongside Apple’s on iOS devices. “This is what we’ve wanted all along,” he said. “We think that this achieves the goal that we’ve been aiming for in the US, while there are still some challenges elsewhere in the world.”

While Sweeney said the specific iOS developer account Epic used to publish Fortnite in 2020 is still banned, he added that the company has several other developer accounts that could be used for the new submission, including one it has used to support Unreal Engine on Apple devices. And while Sweeney allowed that Apple could still “arbitrarily reject Epic from the App Store despite Epic following all the rules,” he added that, in light of this latest court ruling, Apple would now “have to deal with various consequences of that if they did.”

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Supreme Court denies Epic v. Apple petitions, opening up iOS payment options

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Epic v. Apple —

Most of Epic’s arguments are moot now, but one point will change the App Store.

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Fortnite characters looking across the many islands and vast realm of the game.

Enlarge / Artist’s conception of iOS developers after today’s Supreme Court ruling, surveying a new landscape of payment options and subscription signaling.

Epic Games

The Supreme Court declined to hear either of the petitions resulting from the multi-year, multi-court Epic v. Apple antitrust dispute. That leaves most of Epic’s complaints about Apple’s practices unanswered, but the gaming company achieved one victory on pricing notices.

It all started in August 2020, when Epic sought to work around Apple and Google’s app stores and implemented virtual currency purchases directly inside Fortnite. The matter quickly escalated to the courts, with firms like Spotify and Microsoft backing Epic’s claim that Apple’s App Store being the only way to load apps onto an iPhone violated antitrust laws.

The matter reached trial in May 2021. The precise definitions of “games” and “marketplace” were fervently debated. Epic scored a seemingly huge victory in September 2021 when a Northern California judge demanded that Apple allow developers to offer their own payment buttons and communicate with app customers about alternate payment options. An appeals court upheld that Apple’s App Store itself wasn’t a “walled garden” that violated antitrust laws but kept the ruling that Apple had to open up its payments and messaging.

Today’s denial of petitions for certiorari means that Apple has mostly run out of legal options to prevent changes to its App Store policies now that multiple courts have found its “anti-steering” language anticompetitive. Links and messaging from developers should soon be able to send users to alternative payment options for apps rather than forcing them to stay entirely inside Apple’s App Store, resulting in a notable commission for Apple.

Epic’s goals to see Fortnite restored to the App Store or see third-party stores or sideloading on iPhones remain unfulfilled. This is not the case with Epic’s antitrust suit against Google, which in mid-December went strongly in Epic’s favor. With a unanimous jury verdict against Google, a judge this month will determine how to address Google’s violations—potentially including Epic’s request that it and other developers be allowed to issue their own app stores and payment systems on Android devices.

Tim Sweeney, CEO of Epic Games, wrote in a thread on X (formerly Twitter) that the Supreme Court’s denial means the “battle to open iOS to competing stores and payments is lost in the United States” and that it was a “sad outcome for all developers.” Sweeney noted that as of today, developers on Apple’s platforms can “tell US customers about better prices on the web.” And he noted that regulatory and policy actions around the world, including the upcoming EU Digital Markets Act, may have further impact.

Apple has yet to comment on today’s Supreme Court decision.

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