Epic v. Apple at Six: How a V-Bucks Discount Reached the Supreme Court
It began with a cheaper pack of V-Bucks in August 2020. Six years, one contempt ruling and a criminal referral later, the US Supreme Court will decide how far a judge can push Apple. Here is the whole saga, and why every mobile game shop is watching.
On the morning of 13 August 2020, Fortnite players on iPhone saw a new option in the item shop: buy V-Bucks straight from Epic Games and pay about 20% less. Within hours Apple removed the game from the App Store. Epic had a lawsuit ready the same day, and a parody of Apple's famous "1984" advert ready to play inside Fortnite itself. It was not a misunderstanding. It was a plan.
Six years later the case is still alive. On 30 June 2026 the US Supreme Court agreed to hear Apple's appeal, but only on one narrow question: whether the civil contempt finding against Apple, and the sanctions that came with it, went too far. Legal observers do not expect oral argument before 2027. Until then, the rules that let US iPhone apps send players to cheaper web stores stay in force, and that matters to almost every mobile game you play.
The trap Epic built
Epic's complaint was simple. Apple's App Store is the only way to put an app on an iPhone, and Apple requires games to use its own in-app payment system, which takes a 30% commission (15% for small developers and for subscriptions after the first year). Apple also banned "steering": apps could not tell users that a cheaper price existed elsewhere.
Epic wanted a judge to say that this amounted to an illegal monopoly. It deliberately broke Apple's rules so that the removal of Fortnite, then one of the biggest games on the planet, would become Exhibit A. Google pulled Fortnite from the Play Store the same day, and Epic sued it too (we cover that case in our Epic v. Google story).
Apple hit back hard. It said it would cut off Epic's access to the developer tools used not only for Fortnite but also for Unreal Engine, the game engine that thousands of other studios rely on. On 24 August 2020 the judge blocked Apple from touching Unreal Engine, while refusing to order Fortnite back onto the store. Her reasoning was blunt: Epic's predicament was, in large part, of its own making.
The 2021 verdict: a win for Apple, mostly
The case went to a three-week bench trial in Oakland in May 2021 before Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers. Apple chief executive Tim Cook took the stand near the end of the testimony.
On 10 September 2021 the judge ruled for Apple on nine of ten counts: she did not find that Apple was an illegal monopolist, and Epic had to pay Apple $3.6 million for breaching its developer agreement.
But the tenth count mattered. Under California's unfair-competition law, the judge ordered Apple to stop forbidding developers from pointing users to other ways to pay. Appeals followed. The Ninth Circuit upheld the ruling in April 2023, and in January 2024 the Supreme Court declined to hear either side's appeal. The anti-steering order became final.
Apple's 27% answer, and the judge's fury
Apple complied in its own way. Developers could now include a link to an outside web store, but Apple would charge a 27% commission on purchases made within seven days of tapping that link (12% for small businesses). Users also saw a full-screen warning before leaving the app. Few developers took the deal: on top of payment processing, a 27% fee left almost no saving.
Epic went back to court. On 30 April 2025, Judge Gonzalez Rogers found Apple in civil contempt of her injunction. Her ruling said Apple had deliberately designed its compliance to keep steering unattractive, and that a finance executive had lied under oath. She referred the matter to federal prosecutors to consider criminal contempt, barred Apple from charging any commission on linked-out purchases, and banned the warning screens beyond a neutral message. Her line "This is an injunction, not a negotiation" became the most quoted sentence of the whole case.
Within days, apps from Spotify to Kindle added external purchase links, and many mobile game publishers began advertising web shops inside their games. Fortnite itself returned to the US App Store on 20 May 2025, almost five years after it was pulled, and climbed straight to the top of the free charts.
The appeal: contempt upheld, the zero fee trimmed
Apple appealed the contempt ruling. On 11 December 2025 the Ninth Circuit largely backed the judge: it affirmed the civil contempt finding, kept most sanctions, refused to free Apple from the injunction and refused to move the case to a different judge. But it trimmed one remedy. The court said Apple may charge some fee on purchases made through steering links, as long as that fee is limited and tied to the actual costs of the services Apple provides. Exactly how much is now a question for the district court.
Apple then asked the Supreme Court to step in. In June 2026 the justices agreed, limiting their review to the civil contempt question rather than reopening the whole antitrust fight.
By the numbers
- 13 August 2020: Fortnite removed from the App Store and Google Play; Epic sues both.
- 9 of 10: counts Apple won in the September 2021 ruling.
- $3.6 million: what Epic owed Apple for breaching its developer contract.
- 27%: Apple's commission on linked-out purchases from January 2024 until the April 2025 contempt ruling.
- 0%: the commission allowed after April 2025, later loosened by the Ninth Circuit to a cost-based fee to be set.
- 20 May 2025: Fortnite back on the US App Store after nearly five years.
- 30 June 2026: Supreme Court agrees to review the contempt holding.
What it means for the games on your phone
For players, the most visible result is the "buy on our website" button. Since spring 2025, many big US mobile games have added links to web shops where currency bundles often cost less or come with bonuses, because the publisher keeps more of each sale. (We explain how those shops work in our web shop guide.)
For developers, the stakes are bigger. If the Supreme Court sides with Apple, the contempt sanctions could be narrowed or undone, and Apple could regain room to set fees on linked purchases. If the justices side with Epic, the strict version of the order survives and the cost-based fee that the lower court sets becomes the template.
WGC's take, and what to watch
Epic lost most of its case and still changed the iPhone. That is the odd shape of this saga: a company that was told Apple is not a monopolist ended up rewriting how Apple can charge in its biggest market. What to watch next:
- The district court's fee ruling: how much Apple may charge on linked purchases after the Ninth Circuit's decision.
- The Supreme Court schedule: argument is not expected before 2027, with a decision likely later that year.
- Copycat rules abroad: the EU, Japan, Korea and the UK are pushing Apple in the same direction (see our explainer on what you pay the stores).
For now, if your favourite mobile game shows a cheaper web price, you can thank a V-Bucks discount from 2020.