Fortnite Returns To Apple US App Store After 5-Year Ban 11
Fortnite has returned to Apple's App Store in the United States after a nearly five-year absence, marking a significant victory for Epic Games in its protracted legal battle against Apple's App Store policies. The return follows an April 30 ruling where a federal judge determined Apple violated a court order requiring the company to allow greater competition for app downloads and payment methods, referring Apple to federal prosecutors for a criminal contempt investigation.
Epic CEO Tim Sweeney celebrated on X with a simple "We back fam" message. The game, which had 116 million users on Apple's platform before its 2020 removal, was banned after Epic challenged Apple's practice of charging up to 30% commission on in-app payments as anticompetitive.
Epic CEO Tim Sweeney celebrated on X with a simple "We back fam" message. The game, which had 116 million users on Apple's platform before its 2020 removal, was banned after Epic challenged Apple's practice of charging up to 30% commission on in-app payments as anticompetitive.
W's in Chat. Let's Gooooooooo!!11 (Score:2, Insightful)
A win for fans of both Fortnite and common sense.
Apple can't stay out of trouble (Score:5, Informative)
TFS is missing an important pretext: Yesterday, the same judge that slapped them on the 30th told Apple that it had until 5:00PM tomorrow to submit a legal reason for why it was rejecting Fortnite still, and name a specific individual who has the power to make a decision on this case (and presumably that the court can hold in contempt for further non-compliance.) In its letter to Epic, it said it was taking no action until the 9th Circuit appeals court could hear its appeal. This is, yet again, another blatant violation of the court's orders. The April 30th orders specifically said that Apple is not permitted any more delays, even while it waits for its appeal, due to the severity of the ongoing misconduct in the form of repeated, unnecessary delays.
https://arstechnica.com/gaming... [arstechnica.com]
All that they're doing with this is making their chances in appeals worse because they keep showing that they think they can just freely ignore court orders that they don't like. This is a little disappointing, I was kind of hoping to see Apple submit yet another bullshit response and be taught another lesson in humility that it still hasn't learned.
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I think we have been educated, repeatedly, that those with money are not held accountable. Apple is at least 100 trumps in just on-hand cash.. They just need to give out some gratuities.
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You're not a billionaire. They're above the law.
Re: Apple can't stay out of trouble (Score:2)
Also, you can't physically put a corporation in jail.
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Yesterday, the same judge that slapped them on the 30th told Apple that it had until 5:00PM tomorrow to submit a legal reason for why it was rejecting Fortnite still, and name a specific individual who has the power to make a decision on this case (and presumably that the court can hold in contempt for further non-compliance.) In its letter to Epic.
I think I agree that this is being done in good faith (to the court) pending appeal. From what I recall Apple had a perfectly valid legal reason to ban Fortnite - Epic games breached the Terms of Service of the app store, which is also why their attempt to get an injunction to put them back into the store was rejected.
There's a valid reason to claim that Epic's breach had nothing to do with the case - since they could have brought a case against Apple's terms without breaching the ToS at the time, and there
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I wonder what the final settlement will be for Epic. 5 years off the App Store, must have cost them a lot.