A federal judge issued an order to stop Apple from terminating Epic’s developer account completely, however, ruled that the tech giant was not bound to bring Fortnite back to its platform.

The temporary restricting order that Epic filed in August to stop Apple from canceling its developer accounts and ripping off the organization and its software tool Unreal Engine from Mac and iOS is permanent now.

Presently, numerous games in the Apple app store rely on Unreal Engine. It means that for the time being, Fortnite, the gaming app will remain inaccessible to Apple users. This might huge mass emigration of Fortnite gamers to the Android platform from Apple.

Yvonne Gonzales Rogers, the Judge stated in the ruling that Apple and Epic Games are at freedom to litigate this action for the digital frontier’s future, but their dispute should not create chaos for the audience.

Epic had sued Apple on 13th August charging the organization’s rules about in-app purchases and the made it compulsory for tariff developers to pay, which is anti-competitive.

As per the rules, app developers can only use the in-house payment processing service of Apple which sees that Apple receives a 30% commission in all in-app purchases.

Epic made an attempt to circumvent this rule in Fortnite, its popular game, by coding it in such a way that users can buy it directly from them at discount, instead of Apple.

Apple does not permit alternative payment methods like these and hence eliminated Fortnite from the App Store and jeopardized to stop Epic's developer accounts, which could impact the other businesses of Epic of selling software utilized to develop games.

Epic immediately retaliated and took a step to prevent Apple from taking either of the two steps. The judge earlier announced an emergency order through which Apple was permitted to take away Epic's titles from the App Store but banned it from taking any action that could destroy Epic's developer tools.

Source: https://www.channelnews.com.au/judge-blocks-apple-from-banning-epic-games-from-app-store/