Nobody really won in the battle royale between Apple and Fortnite
Epic Games partially gets what it wanted, but Fortnite might still never return to iPhones
A ruling has been made in the contentious legal battle between Apple and Fortnite creator Epic Games, but until the appeals start rolling in, nobody can really declare a “victory royale” on this one. (That’s a Fortnite reference.) Epic failed in its plot to tear down the walls of iOS and Apple failed in its bid to make Epic apologize for being a bad friend, but there were still some noteworthy decisions made because of the suit. The Verge has a handy write-up of what it all means, but the short version is that everyone was wrong in some way and that nobody is going to get exactly what they wanted from this.
It all started last summer, with Epic introducing a new payment system in Fortnite that allowed users to save 20 percent on the game’s currency of V-Bucks (used to buy new characters and dances and whatnot) if bought anywhere other than through the App Store or Google’s Play Store. The trick was that Apple and Google get a cut of all the money made through in-app purchases on their stores, so by prompting users to buy their V-Bucks somewhere else, Epic was circumventing that and standing in the way of Apple and Google getting their share. Apple saw this as a violation of App Store rules and pulled Fortnite from the platform, and then—almost as if this was planned from the beginning, because it absolutely was—Epic immediately dropped a lawsuit on Apple for allegedly having a “total monopoly in the iOS App Distribution Market.”
