The ongoing Epic Games v. Apple trial continues to offer interesting and rare looks into how business is conducted for game industry and tech giants alike.
So far we’ve had behind-the-scenes peeks at things like the finances behind the Epic Games Store’s free game giveaways (via Bloomberg), Microsoft’s since-abandoned plans to reduce its cut of Xbox game sales, and, as of this week, a look at how much Apple made from Fortnite’s time on the iOS App Store.
According to testimony from Apple’s Michael Schmid this week, Apple generated somewhere over $100 million in revenue from Fortnite’s time on its iOS App Store, though Apple dodged any attempts to specify exactly how much over $100 million it saw thanks to Fortnite.
While Fortnite is free to play, iOS and the App Store are set up so Apple receives a 30 percent cut of all revenue generated by apps on the platform, including revenue generated from in-game purchases of things like Fortnite’s V-Bucks currency.
When pressed, Schmid said it wouldn’t be appropriate to disclose if Apple’s Fortnite revenue surpassed $200 million. However he did note that Apple spent just under $1 million marketing Fortnite in the 11 months before it pulled the game from the App Store over Epic’s addition of an unsanctioned payment method.
No specifics were offered on how much Apple has spent marketing Fortnite since it launched on iOS in 2018, but Schmid adds that the total is more than any other game he’s worked with in his time leading Apple’s business development for games.
Estimates from outside analysts like Sensor Tower put Apple’s overall Fortnite revenue much higher than $100 million. According to that particular firm, Epic has generated $1.2 billion in revenue from the iOS version of Fortnite alone. With Apple’s then-standard 30 percent share, that’s closer to $360 million for Apple from Fortnite’s launch to its sudden dismissal in August 2020.