Earlier this month, Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers passed an injunction stating Apple must allow other payment systems on the App Store in the Apple v. Epic trial. Despite this major blow, the judge sided with Apple in all other points and found Epic Games guilty of breaching its contract with the company. The judge left it up to Apple whether it wanted to reinstate Epic’s App Store account or not and let Fortnite back on the App Store.
Apple has now denied Epic Games’ request to reinstate their developer account and put Fortnite back on the App Store. In a series of tweets, Epic CEO Tim Sweeney said “Apple lied” and that despite agreeing to “play by the same rules as everyone else,” it informed Epic that they would be blacklisted from the App Store until all the court proceedings are complete.
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
As is the case with court proceedings, they can take years to complete, with Sweeney himself calling it a “5-year process.”
This essentially means that Fortnite is not going to be back on the App Store anytime in the near future. Epic seemingly does not have any option here now as Apple is within its rights to deny reinstating Epic Games’ developer account.
Following the injunction passed by the court earlier this month, Epic Games has also paid Apple $6 million to comply with orders.
It looks like Epic’s plans to take on Apple and the App Store seem to have failed in a big way. Do you think Apple is doing the right thing here? Or should it let Fortnite back on the App Store?
