Apple officially unplugs Epic from the App Store
Right on schedule, Apple has terminated the App Store account Epic Games used to support and maintain Fortnite. Epic warned iOS and macOS users earlier in the week it would no longer have the ability to update Fortnite after August 28th, and now that’s the case. Outside of the popular battle royale, the developer still had other games on the App Store, but those have now been removed as well.
Apple and Epic’s ongoing legal feud started earlier this month when Epic started offering discounts on Fortnite’s V-bucks currency and other cash purchases if players bypassed the App Store. Shortly after the associated update went live, Apple removed the game. Epic then quickly responded by suing the tech giant. If you already have Fortnite on an Apple device, you should be able to continue playing the game with other Apple users, but you won’t be able to access its new season, nor pay for any microtransactions.
In a statement, Apple said Epic sent it multiple updates for certification, all of which went afoul of its guidelines.
“We are disappointed that we have had to terminate the Epic Games account on the App Store. We have worked with the team at Epic Games for many years on their launches and releases. The court recommended that Epic comply with the App Store guidelines while their case moves forward, guidelines they’ve followed for the past decade until they created this situation. Epic has refused. Instead they repeatedly submit Fortnite updates designed to violate the guidelines of the App Store. This is not fair to all other developers on the App Store and is putting customers in the middle of their fight. We hope that we can work together again in the future, but unfortunately that is not possible today.”
The move does not affect an alternative account Epic uses to maintain the Unreal Engine. At the start of the week, a judge said Apple could not retaliate for the Fortnite situation by blocking the account associated with Unreal. The judge said the move seemed “like an overreach.”
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