Fortnite is not expected to return to Apple’s App Store until the litigation with Epic Games is over. The iPhone company declined a request for the resumption, according to a letter from Apple that Epic CEO Tim Sweeney posted on Twitter. However, it can take up to five years for the court proceedings to be completed.
Sweeney assures that Apple “has lied”, because according to him, “Apple spent a whole year telling the world, the court and the press that they would welcome the return of Epic to the App Store if they agree to play with the same rules as the rest of the world.” Something that Epic would have done, according to Sweeney, and that has not been enough to return everything to how it was before.
In a thread, Sweeney not only detailed the emails that would serve as proof that Epic decided to follow Apple’s ‘rules of the game’, but Apple responded with an email informing him that Fortnite would be blacklisted from the Apple ecosystem until “the exhaustion of all court appeals.” Sweeney laments, explaining that this is a process that could take up to 5 years.
The letter reads as follows: “Apple has exercised its discretion not to reinstate the Epic’s developer program account at this time. Furthermore, Apple will not consider any further request for reinstatement until the district court’s judgement becomes final and nonappealable.” It refers to Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers, responsible for the trial between the two companies.
Interestingly, Fortnite could have returned to the App Store shortly after September 10, the date the court issued a ruling that affected the two companies to a lesser or greater extent. However, Epic Games did not agree that Apple should be freed from the monopoly charges, so they appealed the ruling three days later. Its only achievement is that now Apple cannot prohibit developers from directing users to their own payment systems. So, don’t expect Fortnite to return to the App Store anytime soon.
