It’s been four years since Fortnite, one of the world’s most popular games, was pulled from the Apple App Store in a blaze of controversy and finger-pointing.
Today marks the launch of the Epic Games Store on Android and iOS—iOS just in Europe, Android worldwide.
Right now, it just has three games: Fortnite, Rocket League Sideswipe, and Fall Guys.
The Epic Games Store is run by Epic Games, the same company that develops and publishes Fortnite.
The new iPhone app store doesn’t offer nearly as many options or perks as the PC version, but Epic says it’s working on wrangling developers onto its store.
Fortnite, a highly popular game, was removed from the Apple App Store four years ago amid much controversy and finger-pointing. The iPhone is making a comeback today, but only in the EU.
The Epic Games Store is now available on Android and iOS devices—iOS only in Europe, Android globally. This launch occurs today. It currently only offers three games: Fall Guys, Rocket League Sideswipe, and Fortnite. Furthermore, using it on your iPhone will require you to be in Europe.
The same business that creates and publishes Fortnite, Epic Games, also manages the Epic Games Store. Here’s a brief synopsis and analysis of the story for those who have been following Apple or Epic in recent years, as most people are already aware of it.
Opinion: Even after four years, users still lose.
Epic knew that their alterations to Fortnite concerning digital payments went against Apple’s terms for platform developers, and they did so at the CEO Tim Sweeney’s direction. Following Apple’s decision to remove Fortnite, a protracted, ugly legal and public relations conflict erupted between the two businesses across numerous nations and areas.
While a judge’s ruling in the US gave Epic and other developers hoping to break Apple’s dominance over the platform some minor victories, things remained mostly unchanged.
In Europe, things proceeded somewhat differently. With the passage of the Digital Markets Act (DMA) by EU lawmakers and regulators, Apple and Google’s app store operations were significantly impacted. The new law obliged Apple, among other things, to permit third-party, alternate app stores on the iPhone, or sideloading.
Apple’s compliance was far from enthusiastic; it was criticized for attempting to erect barriers and for citing security and privacy concerns for users, which are legitimate concerns, but the real issue is, of course, the company’s confident grip on app revenues on its platforms. In addition, Sweeney criticized the company in a series of almost comically exaggerated tweets, and Apple turned down Epic’s repeated attempts to launch its app store for a number of obscure reasons.
Epic is finally ready to launch its app store, even with Apple’s slow progress. Epic had previously introduced a somewhat successful PC App Store, although Steam from Valve still commands a large portion of the user base. Although the PC version’s app store has far more features and options than the new iPhone app store, Epic claims to be working on getting developers onto its platform.
Additionally, it states that its games will be made available on other iOS and Android alternative app stores, like AltStore PAL.
The journey to this point has been a long, torturous, and furious one. There is still some disagreement over who has prevailed in the conflict between Epic and Apple thus far. However, there’s little arguing that users haven’t come out on top, whether you want to blame Epic, Apple, or both.
