It could be a long time before you get to play Fortnite on your iPhone again, kids.
In fact, it could take so long that some of you won’t even technically be kids anymore.
“Apple informed Epic that Fortnite will be blacklisted from the Apple ecosystem until the exhaustion of all court appeals,” said Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney in a thread posted to Twitter on Wednesday.
That could be a while. As Sweeney pointed out in his tweet, the appeals process could very well take as long as five years.
And, according to email correspondence embedded in Sweeney’s tweets, the end of the appeals process would only signify that Apple would be willing to consider reversing its decision to ban Fortnite, along with Epic’s entire developer account.
“Apple has exercised its discretion not to reinstate Epic’s developer program account at this time,” reads an email from Apple’s legal counsel. “Furthermore, Apple will not consider any further requests for reinstatement until the district court’s judgment becomes final and non-appealable.”
Oof.
Fortnite, the popular free-to-play multiplayer battle royale video game, was booted from the App Store by Apple more than a year ago, in August 2020. Epic Games, the game’s developer, had included a way for users to purchase Fortnite’s in-game currency, V-Bucks, directly from Epic.
This workaround would avoid Apple’s 30 percent cut for in-app purchases. It would also break Apple’s terms of service. Apple soon removed Fortnite from the App Store. And when the inevitable happened, Epic Games was ready with a legal complaint, a battle the two companies have been embroiled in ever since.
Fast forward to earlier this month when a judge handed down a mixed ruling in Epic’s lawsuit: Apple won as Epic was unable to prove the iPhone-maker was acting as a monopoly by forcing in-app purchases be made through their platform. Epic also had to pay Apple 30 percent of the revenue it withheld from Apple when it bypassed the in-app purchase system.
However, Epic came out on top as the judge ruled that Apple did violate laws regarding blocking developers from providing links to third-party storefronts. As a result, Apple will no longer force in-app purchases to be made through the company.
As Epic Games CEO Sweeney showed in his tweets, the company reached out to Apple in order to reactivate its developer account, saying it would agree to Apple’s new terms and work to bring Fortnite back to iOS.
According to Sweeney, Apple declined to do so and won’t reconsider until the appeals process is complete. Meanwhile, Epic Games is saying Apple “lied” and “broke its promise to allow Fortnite back on iOS.”
So, gamers will need to continue playing Fornite on platforms other than iOS and Mac for the near future…and probably the distant future as well.
Mashable has reached out to both Epic Games and Apple for comment, and we’ll update this post if we hear back.
