Apple’s App Store approves Epic Games’ ‘Fortnite’ in the U.S. and E.U.

Epic Games’ multiplayer shooter game “Fortnite” returned to Apple’s U.S. App Store on Tuesday, ending a nearly five-year ban and securing a significant victory for the video game company.
Reuters:
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Epic Games, a U.S.-based studio backed by China’s Tencent has been locked in a legal battle with Apple since 2020. Epic Games alleged the iPhone maker’s practice of charging a commission of up to 30% on in-app payments violated U.S. antitrust rules.
“For Epic Games this was a hard fought win that carried a very steep price and may be too late to boost its Fortnite game that is now past its prime,” said Gil Luria, analyst at D.A. Davidson. “For Apple this is another crack in the armor that the services business relies on — the funneling of payments through Apple in order to charge developers for every transaction.”
The game title was also available on the Epic Games Store and AltStore in the European Union, Fortnite said on X on Tuesday.

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MacDailyNews Take: Pending appeal.
As we wrote while Apple let them twist in the wind for a while, “No rush for an old game that’s years past its prime.”
The bottom line is clear: Epic Games wants to enjoy all of the benefits of Apple’s App Store, including access to well over one billion of the world’s most affluent users for free. That is illogical, unfair, and, basically, theft. – MacDailyNews, May 4, 2021
How much did it cost developers to have their apps burned onto CDs, boxed, shipped, displayed on store shelves prior to Apple remaking the world for the better for umpteenth time? Apple incurs costs to store, review, organize, surface, and distribute apps to over one billion users. — MacDailyNews, June 10, 2022

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