Epic Games asks judge to force Apple to approve Fortnite

Epic Games is escalating its efforts to pressure Apple to allow its game Fortnite into its App Store, with a new court filing asking Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers to require that Apple “accept any compliant version of Fortnite onto the U.S. storefront of the App Store.”

Epic and Apple have been engaged in a years-long legal battle over Apple’s App Store policies, particularly the commissions Apple charges for in-app purchases.

The Fortnite publisher scored a major victory last month when Judge Rogers ruled that Apple was in “willful violation” of an injunction on anti-competitive pricing — a ruling that seemed to pave the way for Fortnite to return to the App Store, and more broadly, for developers to offer alternative payment options in their apps.

However, Apple said it will appeal the ruling, and on Friday, Epic said Friday the company is blocking Fortnite from both its U.S. App Store and preventing it from being released on the Epic Games store in Europe: “Now, sadly, Fortnite on iOS will be offline worldwide until Apple unblocks it.”

Apple disputed this characterization, specifically the suggestion that it was blocking Fortnite outside the United States. Instead, the company said it asked Epic Sweden to “resubmit the app update without including the U.S. storefront of the App Store so as not to impact Fortnite in other geographies.”

But why block Fortnite in the United States? Epic released a letter signed by Mark A. Perry, an attorney representing Apple, telling Epic’s lawyers that “Apple has determined not to take action on the Fortnite app submission until after the Ninth Circuit rules on our pending request for a partial stay of the new injunction.”

In its filing, Epic argues that Apple is denying it “the ability to take advantage of the pro-competitive rules it helped usher in,” and “punishing” Epic “by shutting it out of the very market it has fought so hard to open — while sending a clear message to other developers not to challenge Apple’s practices.”