Epic Games asks court to force Apple to reinstate Fortnite on App Store

After last week’s partial win against Apple, Epic Games filed for a preliminary injunction to force Apple to allow Fortnite back on the App Store and restore access to its developer account.

Today we asked the Court to stop Apple’s retaliation against Epic for daring to challenge its unlawful restrictions while our antitrust case proceeds. This is a necessary step to free consumers and developers from Apple’s costly, anti-competitive control. https://t.co/r2XxhitjMp

— Epic Games Newsroom (@EpicNewsroom) September 5, 2020

Epic decided to act quickly with the recent injunction ahead of the scheduled September 28 hearing to show how the absence of Fortnite on iOS and macOS is hurting Epic and fans of the game.

“Moreover, since Apple has acted on its threats (as modified by this Court’s TRO), macOS users also have lost access to the latest season of Fortnite. Thus, millions of iOS and macOS users have been splintered off from the Fortnite community. Apple has said this ban on Fortnite will last at least a year,” said Epic via the injunction.

Epic also added the “daily active Fortnite users on iOS have already declined by more than 60% since Apple began its retaliatory campaign through September 2, 2020.”

Already, owners of iOS devices are already missing out on the latest Fortnite Marvel-themed season since they can’t update the game.

More than 116 million registered users (out of 350 million overall) play it via iOS, the platform with the most Fortnite fans. Unfortunately, 63% of iPhone and iPad owners (73+ million) play Fortnite only with iOS devices.

Since Epic Games incorporated the direct payment option in the game to skip the 30% tax on in-app purchases, the company took both Apple and Google to court for removing Fortnite from both app stores. Apple went a step further by attempting to cut access Epic from development tools for Fortnite and Unreal Engine. Days ago, a judge prevented Apple from removing access to Epic Games for Unreal Engine, but not for Fortnite.

Check out the most recent preliminary injunction here .

[Source]: @EpicNewsroom: Today we asked the Court to stop Apple’s retaliation against Epic for daring to challenge its unlawful restrictions while our antitrust case proceeds.