Apple Removes Fortnite from iOS Devices

Guillermo Ortega

Epic Games and Apple are locking horns over V-Bucks and Fortnite, iOS users are in the middle of a legal war that has started with the most played game in the recent years being banned from iOS devices. Yesterday, Epic Games announced a permanent discount on the Fortnite’s V-Bucks, but there are no discounts if the players acquire the v-buck from App Store or Google Play Store.

Epic has taken legal action to end Apple’s anti-competitive restrictions on mobile device marketplaces, the team at Epic Games also released a mock-up, to the Steve Job’s 1984 commercial in which Apple fought IBM, a large company that had all the market share for business-oriented computers

“Epic believes that you have a right to save money thanks to using more efficient, new purchase options. Apple’s rules add a 30% tax on all of your purchases, and they punish game developers like us who offer direct payment options.”

Apple has blocked Fortnite from the App Store, removing everyone’s ability to install and update the game on iOS devices, while instructing Epic to “remove the ‘Epic direct payment’ feature”. Apple is keeping prices high so they can collect 30% of your payments, and is blocking Fortnite in order to prevent Epic from passing on the savings from direct payments to you! Join the fight against @AppStore on social media with #FreeFortnite.

Players who already downloaded Fortnite via the App Store can play Chapter 2 – Season 3’s 13.40 update on iOS, however, Apple has banned its users to download future updates, the upcoming Season 4 won’t be present in iOS and players won’t be able to access any new content or the new Battle Pass.

Epic Games is led by Tim Sweeney, developer of the Unreal Engine, and CEO and founder of Epic Games, in 2018 he announced the launch of the Epic Games Store. The new game launcher was not well received by biased Steam fans, certainly, it did not help that Epic Games pushed for timed-exclusive releases, but the vision of Sweeney is to change the industry by offering revenue to creators.

In Epic Games Store all developers receive 88% of revenue. There are no tiers or thresholds. Epic takes 12%. And if the creator is using Unreal Engine, Epic will cover the 5% engine royalty for sales on the Epic Games store, out of Epic’s 12%.