'We would welcome Epic's return to the App Store if they agree to play by the same rules as everyone else,' Apple told Reuters in a brief statement.

The new South Korean law states a developer should be able to take payment directly, without using Apple's payment systems which see it take a cut.īut, of course, there's nothing in the law that says Apple as a platform holder is required to allow certain companies onto its app store in the first place. 'Epic intends to re-release Fortnite on iOS in Korea offering both Epic payment and Apple payment side-by-side in compliance with the new Korean law.'īut Reuters subsequently reported Apple had simply declined. 'Epic has asked Apple to restore our Fortnite developer account,' the statement read. And pretty much every other Fortnite player too.Last night, Epic publicised its request to Apple via a post to the Fortnite Twitter account, which has 13.3m followers. If my Mac would recognize my controller, I’m pretty sure that I would clean up here - even fortysomething, reactions-like-a-moss-covered-boulder me.īut what would be the point? The wins you accrue in the Mac version don’t go on your record. Perhaps their skills have been blunted by playing against gormless bots for months. I come across more human players - my best guess is a half dozen in each match - but they’re not great. I play another couple of games, finishing in the top ten twice despite my sheer incompetence with the controls. There is no joy to be taken from winning like this. It is the saddest victory dance emote I’ve ever seen. The assassin’s final three kills are taken by standing unprotected on a Frenzy Farm rooftop, picking off lone bots who are randomly running across open fields, only one of which ever returns fire. My best guess is he comes across one other human player - a player so inept that he makes the bots look like navy seals. I spectate the rest of my assassin’s game. The Authority is still on the Mac map Barry Collins/Epic Games Man against machine I dodge and jump around as best I can, but the player takes me down - probably convinced he’s eliminated another useless bot. I’m so excited at the prospect of seeing another human player, and so helpless with the keyboard controls, that by the time I manage to shoot back I’m on my last legs, a bullet away from dying. The kind of erratic but well-aimed fire that bots simply don’t deliver. I instinctively reach for the build tools, before realizing I don’t know what the keyboard controls are, and now I’m being peppered by assault rifle fire. I’m focused on staying dry when a bullet whistles past my ear lobe. I’ve taken my eye off the storm circle and now I’ve got to sprint to safety towards Frenzy Farm. But they can’t be bothered with me and fly off into the distance. I hop up and down, firing pointless rounds at their windscreen, in the sheer hope of engaging with another human player. That must be a human player, the bots rarely bother with the choppers. Suddenly, there’s an unfamiliar clattering from above and someone’s swooping over in a helicopter - a vehicle long since removed from Fortnite. Yet, even with these unfamiliar controls, I’ve smashed my way past three bots and I’m down to the final 20, without encountering another human soul. I usually play with a controller, but my Mac has decided that’s no longer welcome here, and so I’m forced to play with keyboard and mouse - which feels much like writing with the wrong hand. Bots that land in random locations (hence the quiet of Lazy lake), bots that largely avoid confrontation, bots that are about as much fun to play with as a pencil sharpener. It soon becomes clear that most of my fellow players aren’t players at all, but bots. And yet the counter says there are more than 90 other players still alive.

The sound of someone swinging a pickaxe at something, but that’s it. A named location early on the Battle Bus journey would normally be echoing with gunshots as players scramble for the best weapons, but there’s near silence.

I drop down in Lazy Lake - which is one of the first stops directly on the Battle Bus route - and it’s eerily quiet, as if the game has crashed.

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