- Apple and Epic Games, the games company behind Fortnite, have been fighting since 2020.
- After essentially banning Fortnite four years ago, Apple is grudgingly letting it back on its devices — but only in Europe.
Four years ago, Apple essentially booted Fortnite off of its iPhones. Now the popular game is back — but only for iPhones in Europe.
Which makes this a real half-empty/half-full situation for Epic Games, the company that makes Fortnite and other games.
On the one hand, Epic is getting what it wanted back in 2020 — the ability for its users to play its games on Apple's devices, without having to go through Apple's App Store and without having to pay Apple fees.
On the other hand: This is only happening in one part of the world, and Epic has lost a ton of money in the meantime — both from legal fees and revenue it lost when its games disappeared from phones.
All of which underscores how difficult it is for app makers to challenge the power Apple has over what happens on the devices it sells.
We'll discuss that in a minute. But first an explanation of what's happening Friday: People who use iPhones, iPads and Android devices will now be able to download Fornite, as well as other Epic-owned games, without going through Apple or Google's app stores. Instead, they can download Epic's own app store onto their devices, via the Web, and download the games that way.
And if players want to spend money on those games — to buy digital items like cool outfits for their characters — Epic will keep 100% of the dollars the players spend, instead of giving Apple and Google up to 30% of each transaction. Epic is also making its games available via Altstore, a third-party app store that is also supposed to be an Apple App Store workaround.
Here's how we got here: Back in 2020, Epic had intentionally provoked Apple, as part of a fight over Apple's App Store fees and policies. Epic was hoping that fight would culminate in a U.S. court victory that would give Epic, and every other developer, the right to load their apps onto Apple devices without going through the App Store — or at least, without paying Apple a cut of up to 30% whenever a consumer bought something from Epic.
But Epic lost the bulk of that legal fight, which is why you still can't play most of its games on iPhones in the U.S. Earlier this year, though, European regulators forced Apple to open up its store there, and Apple has grudgingly agreed.
And even that victory, Epic argues, has been marred by what it describes as "malicious compliance" on Apple's part. That's the term Epic CEO Tim Sweeney uses to describe a series of announcements and implementation decisions he says have made it hard to actually launch Epic's game store, and to add friction to any attempt consumers do make to use Epic's games.
For instance: Epic says consumers who try to download Fortnite through its app store will encounter "scare screens" like this from Apple, which it says are designed to convince consumers that downloading anything that doesn't come from the Apple App Store could be a problem.
Apple, for its part, says it's just following the regulator's orders. "The [new European law] required us to enable new capabilities for developers in the EU, and we have worked to make them as easy as possible for users while also trying to protect their privacy and security," the company says via email.
The only thing that's really clear about Friday's news is that this fight is going to go on for quite some time: There are a handful of companies, like Epic and Spotify, which have the resources and incentives to really push on Apple's App Store policies, and they seem to have found some sympathetic ears from regulators around the world.
But those App Store policies generate an enormous amount of money for Apple, and that money is more valuable than ever as Apple's core iPhone business slows. So Apple has made it clear that it's going to move as slowly on this stuff as it can.