Epic Games is escalating efforts to put pressure on Apple to put the game Fortnite in the App Store. The new court is asking Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers to require Apple to “accept a compliant version of Fortnite in the US storefront of the App Store.”
Epic and Apple are engaged in a long-standing legal battle over Apple's App Store policy, particularly the committee that Apple charges for in-app purchases.
The Fortnite publisher won a big victory last month when Judge Rodgers determined that Apple was in a “willful violation” of an injunction over anti-competitive pricing. This is a ruling that seems to open up a way for Fortnite to return to its wider and wider versions of the app's alternative payment options.
However, Apple said it would appeal to the ruling, and on Friday, Epic said the company would block Fortnite from both its US app stores and prevent it from being released on the Epic Games Store in Europe.
Apple challenged this feature, particularly the proposal to block Fortnite outside the US. Instead, the company said it asked Epic Sweden to “resubmit app updates without including US App Store stores to prevent it from affecting Fortnite in other regions.”
But why block US Fortnite? Epic released a letter signed by Apple's representative attorney Mark A. Perry, telling Epic's attorney that “Apple has decided not to take action on the submission of the Fortnite App until after the 9th Circuit rules regarding the pending request for a partial stay at New Dunction.”
Epic claims that Epic is denying Apple's ability to “use competitive rules that help it come” and “punish” epics “by “punishing epics by sending a clear message to other developers to not challenge Apple's practices by shutting them out of the market.”