Fortnite developer announced it has filed for a preliminary injunction that would put its game back in the app store and restore its developer account.
n a statement, Epic Games said “Today we ask the Court to stop Apple from retaliating against Epic for daring to challenge Apple’s misconduct while our antitrust case proceeds. Apple is a monopolist and standing up to them is a necessary step to free consumers and developers from the unlawful restrictions Apple has imposed over app distribution and in-app payment processing on iOS. For too long, developers have not spoken out because they fear Apple’s retaliation. The company’s recent actions show that if you challenge Apple’s monopoly, Apple will attempt to destroy your business. We are committed to speaking up and securing lower cost, competitive access for all.”
You can read through an FAQ here and the 182 page filing here (PDF), which includes CEO Tim Sweeney’s emails to Apple, as well as responses from the Apple legal department claiming its stance protects the consumer.
Epic says iOS is the biggest platform for Fortnite, too: 116 million registered users, or nearly a third of the 350 million registered users Epic says Fortnite has attracted in total. It also claims 63 percent of Fortnite users on iOS access Fortnite only on iOS, and that it’s the only way for many people to play the game.
Epic says it’s worried it “may never see these users again” (referring to the 60 percent decline); that its Fortnite community of players has been torn apart; and that some of its non-Fortnite customers have also been collateral damage. As we reported last week, some of Epic’s other games are no longer available to re-download, and Epic says that its Shadow Complex Remastered has been removed from the Mac App Store, too, after Apple terminated Epic’s developer account.
Epic also claims that Apple is threatening to deny any attempts to apply for a new developer account “for at least a year,” quoting a communication from Apple itself, and is arguing that the harm it would endure by being “denied the opportunity to access even a single new user among the one-billion-plus iOS users for at least the next year” is harm worth creating a preliminary injunction for.
There’s a lot more to read in the full document. The first motion runs 38 pages, not to mention the addendums that Epic tacked on.
There are many groups watching from the sidelines, including indie developers who rely on Epic’s development tools, services seeking to launch cloud gaming apps that work on iOS and other developers who also want some flexibility in dealing with the 30 percent cut app stores take from their revenue. Right now the only thing that seems certain is that this isn’t going away anytime soon — a sad state of affairs for the gamers mentioned last in the PDF who posted comments begging to be able to play Fortnite on iOS again.
