Epic Games has confirmed that its newest Fornite season will not be available to Apple gamers. In an official statement, the game developer says that Apple is blocking said updates.
“Apple is blocking Fortnite updates and new installs on the App Store, and has said they will terminate our ability to develop Fortnite for Apple devices. As a result, Fortnite’s newly released Chapter 2 – Season 4 update (v14.00), will not release on iOS and macOS on August 27.”
And that’s not all, Epic Games confirmed to The Verge that “players on iPhone, iPad, and Mac will also lose cross-play Fortnite multiplayer with non-Apple platforms”.
This comes in the midst of a massive brawl between the two companies over in-app payments and Apple alleged App Store monopoly.
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“Epic gave Fortnite players on iOS a choice between Apple payment and Epic direct payment, passing on savings to direct purchasers. Apple retaliated by blocking Fortnite updates on iOS devices and threatening to prevent Epic from creating software for all Apple devices — not just on Fortnite but all of our games, and Unreal Engine too.”
“Apple is asking that Epic revert Fortnite to exclusively use Apple payments. Their proposal is an invitation for Epic to collude with Apple to maintain their monopoly over in-app payments on iOS, suppressing free market competition and inflating prices. As a matter of principle, we won’t participate in this scheme.”
The gaming company goes on to say that device owners have the right to install apps of their choosing and software developers have the right to freely compete in a fair market place but “Apple’s policies take these freedoms away”.
