Epic Games' Fortnite not available on iPhones in EU and the US
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Epic Games' "Fortnite" video game was not available on Apple's AAPL.O iPhone devices in the European Union and the United States on Friday.
Access to Fortnite via Apple's iPhone Operating System and through its App Store will be unavailable worldwide until Apple unblocks it, Epic Games said.
Epic Games did not give a reason why Fortnite was blocked, but Apple said it had asked Epic Sweden to resubmit the app update without including the U.S. storefront so as not to impact Fortnite in other geographies.
"We did not take any action to remove the live version of Fortnite from alternative distribution marketplaces," an Apple spokesperson said.
In case you missed it: Apple challenges US judge's order in Epic Games lawsuit on App Store
Epic, a U.S.-based studio, backed by China's Tencent 0700.HK, is the world's largest game studio. It was launched in 2017 and its last-player-standing, "battle royale" format became an instant hit, drawing millions of players.
Since 2020, however, it has been in a legal battle with Apple, after the gaming firm alleged that Apple's practice of charging a commission of up to 30% on in-app payments violated U.S. antitrust rules.
Apple banned Fortnite from its store in 2020 but allowed the game back last year following pressure from European Union authorities for Big Tech companies to comply with the bloc's Digital Markets Act.
Last year, it also approved Epic Games' marketplace app on iPhones and iPads in Europe.
Epic Games also won a case against Apple earlier this month.
Reporting by Supantha Mukherjee in Stockholm, additional reporting by Akash Sriram in Bengaluru; editing by Barbara Lewis and Alan Barona
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'You need to build natively so the audience is going to have a different experience per platform.' While creating media for virtual and mixed reality may seem like a departure from developing content for 2-D screens, Seiden says the secret to success is a tactic media companies are already familiar with: exclusivity. 'You look at the creation of HBO (Max), you look at the creation of Apple TV+, they grew their audiences based on exclusives, that's why you went to them,' Seiden said. 'I think that model is very familiar to entertainment companies, and they can go to their board saying, 'Hey, this is how platforms grow, with exclusive content.'' That's what makes live virtual sports an easy way to break down extended reality (XR) barriers for audiences. Paul Raphaël, co-founder of Felix & Paul, said sports can be easily adapted for immersive platforms using 180-degree cameras. 'You already have quite a few events and sports being broadcast, whether it's live or asynchronous,' Raphaël said. 'As the audience grows, it's a really straightforward path to create the content or to broadcast the content.' For Hollywood, the possibility of a new major distribution platform couldn't come at a better time. In today's fracturing media environment — shaken by streaming, the collapse of the cable bundle, and post-Covid box office woes — a new medium could be a crucial selling point, especially for entertainment boards looking for a new revenue vein. Jack Davis, co-founder of CryptTV, said headsets might provide a much-needed pipeline for premium content. 'As gigantic structural changes happen in TV and film, the industry is going to need to replace those things in the aggregate,' Davis said. 'This could be one of the only formats that premium entertainment actually seems like it makes sense (for) the user base.' 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Raphaël, however, believes 2-D content may soon feel as dated as pre-Technicolor entertainment. 'Content, the way it is consumed today, is going to be much like we think of black and white movies, where, if a film isn't immersive, it doesn't lose its value, but it becomes something of another era,' Raphaël said.
