The battle between Apple and Epic Games has been going on for six years now, and although it has been a difficult road for Epic Games as they fought against Apple forcing them and other developers to only allow purchases made through the App Store directly, things are looking up for the Fortnite developer. Epic has been trying to bring Fortnite back onto the App Store for a while now, and as of May 19th, the popular battle royale has finally made its return, with Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney declaring it a victory on X. Epic Games also put out a statement saying, “Fortnite is returning to the App Store now because we are confident that once Apple is forced to show its costs, governments around the world will not allow Apple junk fees to stand”.
Previously in 2021, Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers favored Apple in nine out ten counts in Epic’s lawsuit at the time, but would end up siding with Epic in their claim that Apple had violated anti-steering policies by making it so that players could not pay for in-game purchases off the App Store, which meant Apple would always take a cut of what developers made through said purchases. However, Apple was later found violating this ruling in 2025, allegedly imposing new fees and purposefully creating barriers to competition.
Apple would attempt to block Epic Games from returning to District Court to discuss what Apple should be allowed to charge for off-App Store purchases, but this was denied by the Supreme Court, favoring Epic Games once again. Epic Games has spent billions in their fight with Apple, and although Fortnite is still not on the Australian version of the App Store, although they are still determined to win there and, as they put it, “bring Apple’s unlawful conduct to an end and to make orders that will benefit all app developers and iOS users”