Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney on Wednesday said that the company’s popular game, Fortnite will return to the U.S. App Store next week. He also offered what he called a “peace proposal,” promising to bring Fortnite back to the iOS platform worldwide if Apple follows certain steps.
We will return Fortnite to the US iOS App Store next week.
Epic puts forth a peace proposal: If Apple extends the court's friction-free, Apple-tax-free framework worldwide, we'll return Fortnite to the App Store worldwide and drop current and future litigation on the topic. https://t.co/bIRTePm0Tv
— Tim Sweeney (@TimSweeneyEpic) April 30, 2025
“Epic puts forth a peace proposal: If Apple extends the court’s friction-free, Apple-tax-free framework worldwide, we’ll return Fortnite to the App Store worldwide and drop current and future litigation on the topic,” Sweeney wrote.
U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers on Wednesday ruled that Apple violated a court order to better promote competition by opening up its App Store to outside payment options. The judge found that Apple “willfully” violated her injunction.
The judge sided with Epic Games, publisher of Fortnite, who alleged that Apple failed to comply with a 2021 court order issued by Gonzalez Rogers, finding that the Cupertino firm had engaged in anticompetitive conduct in violation of California law.
Gonzalez Rogers ordered Apple to make changes to its App Store, including banning Apple from charging commisisons on purchases made outside of the store. Apple must immediately stop all of its anti-steering policies. The company can no longer prevent developers from informing customers about content ans subscription purchases outside of the App Store.
The judge also instructed federal prosecutors to investigate whether Apple is in criminal contempt of court for violating her 2021 ruling.
“It did so with the express intent to create new anticompetitive barriers which would, by design and in effect, maintain a valued revenue stream; a revenue stream previously found to be anticompetitive,” Gonzalez Rogers wrote in her ruling. “That it thought this court would tolerate such insubordination was a gross miscalculation.”
After the 2021 injunction was put into place, Apple was able to delay putting the changes in place, thanks to appealing the ruling. However, the company was finally forced to put the changes in place in 2024. Apple then allowed developers a single link to direct customers outside of the App Store, and still collected a commisison of between 12 and 27% percent for purchases made from those links.
