Ángel Jiménez from Luis USA

USA

Updated Monday, January 29, 2024-03:10

Almost four years after Apple kicked the popular game

Fortnite

from the App Store,

Epic is ready for its triumphant return.

The company, responsible for the title, has confirmed that it is already working on the version that European players will be able to install on their iPhone now that the Digital Markets Law has opened the doors to alternative application markets.

"Fortnite will return to iOS in Europe in 2024, distributed by the upcoming EpicGames Store for iOS," the company confirmed on X and other social networks last week. Apple announced last Thursday the measures it will take to comply with the new Digital Markets Law, a law that requires the company to allow third-party app stores and additional payment methods within the App Store itself.

Forced by the new law,

it will accept that companies like Epic launch their own app stores and distribute apps and games without having to pay the usual commission that Apple charges in the App Store or with different rules regarding the content that these apps can display.

TOO MANY CONDITIONS

The return, however, will not mean the end of the rivalry between Epic and Apple.

Tim Sweeney,

founder and president of Epic, also made it clear last week in a series of messages in which he accused Apple of not complying with the spirit of the law with the announced changes and described many of the conditions imposed by the company as "a trash".

Although it will now be possible for developers to distribute apps and games in Europe through other stores,

Apple will continue to charge some commissions

for doing so, including a flat amount of 50 cents for each installation of an app after the first million installations. .

Developers will also have to continue sending their applications to Apple to be "notarized", something that the company has justified due to the risk that the new stores pose to the security of the phone.

It has also included

several security controls and constant warnings for users

who decide to download content from these alternative options. "With these measures, Apple is making a mockery of the free market," said Sweeney.

Although Epic will continue with its plan to launch an alternative iPhone game store in Europe this year, it plans to sue Apple in Brussels over these measures.

FOUR YEARS IN LIMBO

The return will mark the closing of a drama that has lasted almost four years. Epic decided in August 2020 to take a shot at Apple by launching a Fortnite update that offered the possibility of purchasing the virtual currency used in the game, V-bucks, with a discount if the purchase was made through the web. of the company.

These types of offers went

against the App Store rules,

which specifically prohibited linking to additional content for applications and games with a price different from that offered to those who prefer to purchase within the app, a transaction for which that Apple gets between 15% and 30% commission. The expulsion started a complex judicial process in the US that

finally ruled in favor of Apple,

but which forced the company to relax the ban on developers from offering alternative offers through its website. Epic appealed the decision, but the appeal was ultimately dismissed by the country's Supreme Court.

The US, in any chaos, is considering investigating whether Apple and the App Store, in their current form, could be considered a

monopoly

. If so, Apple could have to accept conditions similar to those it now has in Europe, but in a market that is much more important for its accounts.