Fortnite: Save The World being pulled from Macs while Epic and Apple grapple
Epic games and Apple are still bickering
The newest casualty in Apple and Epic Games' legal squabble is Fortnite: Save The World. Nah, not the battle royale everyone plays, just the co-op horde game. If you're just catching up, Epic kicked off a big stink with Apple last month with a weird, 1984-inspired propaganda video as they circumvented Apple's cut of App Store sales. It's been all drama since then. Has this really only been going on for four weeks? This is going to be a long, tiresome ride.
Now Epic have announced that they will no longer support Fortnite: Save The World on Mac computers. "Apple is preventing Epic from signing games and patches for distribution on Mac, which ends our ability to develop and offer Fortnite: Save the World for the platform," Epic say in the recent announcement. "Specifically, our upcoming v14.20 release will cause bugs for players on v13.40, resulting in a very poor experience." Save The World will no longer be playable on Macs starting on Wednesday, September 23rd. They say that proper Fortnite, the battle royale, will still be playable but won't be receiving version updates.
On Wednesday, Apple filed a response to Epic's request for a preliminary injunction, saying that "This lawsuit (and the front-page headlines it has generated) appears to be part of a marketing campaign designed to reinvigorate interest in Fortnite."
I'm no lawyer, but apparently this matter isn't going to stay focused entirely on the legal side of things. There's been a lot of sniping back and forth over the last month, crocodile tears and cheap shots and all. Apple have positioned themselves as the valiant protectors of users' privacy and safety while Epic are making themselves out to be freedom fighters from App Store tyranny.
As Apply say, we're probably going to continue seeing this fight play out in headlines for more months than I care to guess.