Fortnite Back On The App Store Later This Year

There’s a big earthquake brewing about Apple’s monopoly on apps that are only downloadable from the App Store. The closure of systems in general, as well as their deliberate restriction to prevent apps from being downloaded only from official online stores, has led the European Union to make sweeping changes. The premise is clear – to give users and developers a choice.

Will Apple bend over backwards?

This summer, EU lawmakers praised the Digital Market Act (DMA) along with the Digital Service Act (DSA). Experts agree that this is a groundbreaking step that is unprecedented in at least 20 years.

Big players in the market like Apple in California will be affected in a significant way. The company is perceived as a “Gatekeeper” on the basis of this legislation and with regard to its annual turnover, including the total number of platforms. In this way, the EU is putting pressure on it to operate in the European market within the boundaries set by the law and not the other way around.

In a nutshell, this means that the constraints under which developers in particular operate will loosen considerably. And as far as users are concerned, that’s about it. Under the future constellation, the ability to install third-party applications is quite crucial. There should also be a significant shift in the presence of games that are primarily available on solo platforms.

Fortnite back on the App Store later this year

Photo by Joshua Hoehne on Unsplash

It’s not yet clear how this will work (direct/indirect promo?), but one thing is certain – game titles that are currently out of favour may very well get the green light. For example, popular studio Epic Games, whose game Fortnite was removed from the App Store in summer 2020 for known reasons, is betting on this.

We’ll just add that the lawsuit with Apple over the disadvantage of competing products in favour of its own as well as exorbitant margins on each download remains ongoing. In fact, both companies have appealed the September 2021 court decision.

Finished business

Given the current circumstances, Fortnite has high hopes of returning to the App Store. Tim Sweeney’s optimistic poke at Apple confirms this. The Epic Games studio boss thinks it’s a de facto done deal. In a tweet as part of the New Year’s Eve celebrations, Sweeney said, “Next year on iOS!”