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NEW YORK -- Fortnite says it's present unavailable connected Apple's iOS globally due to the fact that the tech elephantine blocked a bid to rerelease the fashionable video crippled for iPhone users successful the U.S. and Europe — marking the latest twist successful a yearslong feud.
Apple pulled Epic Games-owned Fortnite from its app store backmost successful 2020, conscionable 2 years aft the widely-popular, multiplayer endurance crippled had launched connected iOS and garnered millions of users. iPhone players successful the U.S. person been locked retired since, though Apple users successful the EU had been capable to download the crippled done an alternate store implicit the past 9 months.
Following years of a tense litigation, a recent tribunal ruling was acceptable to wide the mode for Fortnite to yet instrumentality to iOS users successful the U.S., too. But the video crippled said aboriginal Friday that a determination from Apple has prevented that — and, arsenic a result, Fortnite says it's present acheronian connected iOS globally.
“Apple has blocked our Fortnite submission truthful we cannot merchandise to the U.S. App Store oregon to the Epic Games Store for iOS successful the European Union," Fortnite wrote connected X, the level formerly known arsenic Twitter. “Sadly, Fortnite connected iOS volition beryllium offline worldwide until Apple unblocks it."
In a connection sent to The Associated Press, Apple said it had asked Epic Sweden to resubmit the app update “without including the U.S. storefront of the App Store truthful arsenic not to interaction Fortnite successful different geographies.” Sweden is wherever Epic’s developer relationship for its alternate app store is based.
But, Apple added, it "did not instrumentality immoderate enactment to region the unrecorded mentation of Fortnite from alternate organisation marketplaces.”
Epic did not instantly respond to a petition for further comment.
In the U.S., Epic filed an antitrust suit against Apple backmost successful 2020, alleging the exertion trendsetter was illegally utilizing its powerfulness to gouge crippled makers. After a monthlong proceedings successful 2021, U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers ruled against astir of Epic’s claims, but ordered Apple to loosen its previously-exclusive power implicit the payments made for in-app commerce and let links to alternate options successful the U.S. for the archetypal clip — threatening to undercut sizable commissions that Apple had been collecting from in-app transactions for implicit a decade.
After exhausting an entreaty that went all the mode to the U.S. Supreme Court, Apple past twelvemonth introduced a caller strategy that opened the doorway for links to alternate outgo options portion inactive imposing a 27% committee connected in-app transactions executed extracurricular its ain system.
Epic fired backmost by alleging Apple was thumbing its chemoreceptor astatine the ineligible system, reviving different circular of tribunal hearings that lasted astir a twelvemonth earlier Gonzalez Rogers delivered a stinging rebuke past month — which held Apple successful civilian contempt and banned the institution from collecting immoderate committee connected alternate outgo systems.
That ruling cleared the mode for Epic to yet instrumentality to the iPhone app store successful the U.S., a reinstatement the video crippled shaper was anticipating earlier Apple’s latest move.
Fortnite's availability successful the EU, meanwhile, is nether an alternate store for iPhone users — present called the Epic Games Store. Apple cleared the mode for this past year nether caller regulatory pressures. Prior to Friday, Fortnite and different Epic games had been disposable for download connected iPhones utilizing this store successful the EU since August 2024.
Before the companies' prolonged ineligible battle, Epic launched Fortnite connected iOS successful April 2018. Between past and its August 2020 removal, 116 cardinal users accessed Fortnite connected iOS devices, institution filings enactment — raking successful a regular mean of astir 2.5 cardinal players, which represented astir 10% of Fortnite's full regular postulation astatine the time.
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Liedtke reported from San Francisco.
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