Epic Games is making moves to return its mega-popular battle royale game, Fortnite, to the US iOS App Store as soon as next week. This momentous decision follows a historic court ruling in the nearly decade-long legal saga. Epic Games and Apple have been embroiled in a war of attrition for more than four years.
On April 30, 2025, Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers ruled that very thing on summary judgment. This decision has had an enormously positive effect on the Apple Tax battle still raging in many states. This term is used to describe Apple’s decades-old implementation of the practice of charging developers 30% on all in-app purchases. The ruling said that Apple cannot prohibit developers—such as Epic Games—from including these links within their apps. These links lead customers to other payment options out of Apple’s control.
Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney publicly celebrated the ruling on Twitter. He underscored just how far they had to come to get to today. “It has only taken four years, four months, and seventeen days to arrive at this moment,” he said. He further emphasized the ruling’s impact on developers by declaring, “NO FEES on web transactions. Game over for the Apple Tax.”
In 2021, a district court ruling favored Epic Games. Fortnite still didn’t come back to the iOS App Store. The Board’s ruling follows a national trend encouraging developers to offer payment alternatives. It finally holds that Apple committed a “willful violation” of the injunction for making these practices their default. This Discoverability finding suggests a profound change in the way Apple can get away with doing business in the future.
Sweeney bashing Apple’s fees in the process, asserting that, “Apple’s 15-30% junk fees are now as dead in the United States as they are in Europe under the Digital Markets Act. They’re unlawful here and unlawful there.” This declaration highlights his righteous indignation on this issues that he sees as unfair taxation that Apple places on developers.
As Fortnite prepares for its return, this ruling marks an important new chapter. It stokes the fire of the continuing debate over app store policies and the rights of developers to compete. This could be a thing that really rattles the tech industry. It could lead to other developers considering how best to build their business models away from app store fees.