Epic mentions that it's "likely to suffer irreparable harm" if Fortnite is not made available on the App Store and that "the balance of harms tips strongly in Epic’s favor," citing that daily iOS active users have already declined by over 60% since the app's initial removal from the App Store.
If the players use the same account cross-platform, there are two bits of information Epic needs to add:
- How much has usage gone up on other platforms for those users, and...
- How much has spending changed across all platforms, bottom line?
In a competitive world, if those iOS Fortnite players were diehard Fortnite gamers, they’d get an Android phone and keep playing. It might take a while to move, though. They might play less for a while before they come around.
But if you force Apple to open back up, you kinda lose the chance to see if they’re a monopoly or not.
And if those players swap platforms permanently, you might actually get Apple’s attention.
(Actually I’d say you already have. There’s a reason Apple already has their own subscription game service running. That’s a preemptive move.)