Following Apple and Google‘s decision to boot Fortnite from the App Store and the Play Store, respectively, Epic Games filed antitrust lawsuits against both companies, alleging that they were taking unfair advantage of their dominant market positions. The Fortnite publisher also filed a preliminary injunction against Apple to try and get its money-spinner back on the App Store.
While the case will be up for hearing on September 28, Epic Games has now once again taken legal recourse to make the game available on iPhones. According to Epic’s latest filing, Fortnite has lost 60% of its players on iOS since its removal from the App Store, resulting in a significant loss for the company. In its filing, Epic lamented that its Fortnite community has been ‘torn apart’ by Apple’s decision, and claimed that many of these users may not come back even after the game in reinstated.
The filing was in reply to the court’s interim judgement that Apple need not reinstall the game on the App Store until the final verdict because Epic “strategically chose to breach its agreements with Apple”. Given that Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers did not seem too impressed with Epic’s arguments earlier, it will be interesting to see if she will change her mind this time around.
Both Apple and Google banished Fortnite from their respective app stores last month after Epic introduced its new in-game payment processing option to save the 30% commission that the two companies charge for every transaction done through their platforms. Apple has since terminated Epic’s developer accounts on Mac and iOS, and removed all its other games from the platform. The decision also means that Fortnite’s fourth season of Chapter 2 isn’t available for players on iPhones and Macs.
