Lost Fortnite revenue and legal fees exceed $1 billion in Epic's fight against Apple and Google

While Epic has made billions from Fortnite and Unreal over the years, the question has always remained as to how much it spent and lost in its legal battles with Apple and Google.

It turns out that the answer is at least one of those billions.

In Stephen Totilo's Game File newsletter, a lengthy interview with Epic's Tim Sweeney says they spent hundreds of millions of dollars in legal fees in the fight, but also lost an estimated $1 billion in revenue due to Fortnite being removed from the iOS store for four years – a penalty for trying to circumvent Apple's payment system and the App Store cut. Here's Sweeney on the expenses and revenue losses:

“I guess it's public knowledge that we've spent hundreds of millions of dollars on this fight, including legal fees.

And because Apple has banned Fortnite from the iOS App Store for the past four years, there has been a loss of revenue. It's hard to say how much it will be because it's this alternate reality scenario. But it could well be a billion dollars in lost revenue if Fortnite is off the iOS App Store for four years.”

But Sweeney says the effort was worth it, with the Epic Games Store launching on iOS in the EU today, after a lengthy battle that has at least made this progress possible.

“There really is no price that is not worth paying for the freedom of all developers and the future of gaming… And if we have spent a billion dollars so far, that is a small price to pay for the future freedom of our company and everyone else who wants to participate in the market.”

This is, of course, the same company as Epic, which laid off 16% of its workforce, nearly 900 people, in September 2023 amid these heated legal battles. Previously, Sweeney had lamented that a shared virtual metaverse, a now largely forgotten tech buzzword, was impossible due to things like iOS and Android fees, one reason he was determined to take on these tech giants.

In addition, the Epic Game Store, which Sweeney now wants to bring to all those mobile devices, has been a huge loss-maker for Epic for five years now, due to too much money being spent on exclusives and poor reception to the platform, while PC users clearly prefer Steam. Again, losses are estimated to be in the hundreds of millions of dollars, once again an attempt to avoid Steam fees and now put the same store on other devices.

Sweeney is not wrong when he says that App Store fees are monopolistic, but that seems more be crusade, rather than Epic pursuing this idea as a whole united. The money spent on this, the lost Fortnite revenue, could have been invested in Epic games or saved real jobs. And this grand vision that these cases completely changed the mobile landscape has not happened. It's possible that this is the first step in that direction, and it seems like Sweeney will never give up this fight, but at what cost?

You can read the full Game File report and interview here.

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