Epic Games: Fortnite is offline for Apple devices worldwide after app store rejection [updated]
Updated on Friday, May 16 at 3:15 p.m. ET: On Friday afternoon, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman (who has a history of getting inside scoops from Apple) reported that Apple denies blocking the Fortnite app from iOS devices in Europe. Further, Gurman reported that Apple asked Epic Games to resubmit the app for approval in the EU. We still haven't heard anything from Apple directly, and we'll continue to monitor the situation.
You can read our original story below.
Introducing Fortnite v. Apple, Part Infinity: App Approval Thunderdome.
In case you couldn't tell from the catchy title, the Epic Games v. Apple legal drama has been an ongoing drama in the tech world. And in the latest news, Epic Games reports that Apple has rejected Fortnite's attempted return to the App Store.
"Apple has blocked our Fortnite submission so we cannot release to the US App Store or to the Epic Games Store for iOS in the European Union," posted the official Fortnite account on X today. "Now, sadly, Fortnite on iOS will be offline worldwide until Apple unblocks it."
Mashable reached out to Apple to ask about the situation, and we'll update this article if we learn any new information.
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Exactly a week ago, Epic Games delighted gamers by announcing it had officially resubmitted Fortnite to the App Store. But after the latest rejection, Fortnite has become unavailable for all iOS users worldwide.
Previously, iOS gamers in the EU were at least able to download Fortnite, but now, even that is unavailable. On top of that, Fortnite can't even be downloaded through a third-party app store in the European Union, for reasons that are unclear.
One possible explanation? We know that Epic Games resubmitted Fortnite for approval in the United States using its European developer account. If the submission was rejected as Epic Games claims, that could have triggered a wider problem for the company. Epic Games may have also pulled the app from third-party stores itself.
Here in the United States, iOS gamers have been unable to download Fortnite on Apple devices for years, which is what kicked off the legal case in the first place. Here's the tl;dr version from Mashable's Alex Perry:
Fortnite has been unavailable to play natively on iPhones since 2020 because of a still-ongoing legal dispute between Apple and developer Epic Games. The short version is that Apple likes to take a 30 percent commission on in-app purchases in iOS apps, and Epic didn't like that. One thing led to another, and now there's a bona fide antitrust case against Apple. That case recently resulted in the company being named in contempt of court, forcing the company to stop collecting fees from off-app purchases.
The return of Fortnite to the App Store has been a long time coming, but gamers will have to wait even longer to try and talk to Darth Vader in the game, at least on Apple devices.
On X, Epic Games founder and CEO Tim Sweeney suggested that Apple had "weaponized" the app review process, framing this as a free speech issue.
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