After hours of being offline the free-to-play game, Fortnite is back up and running. Yesterday the gaming platform ran into some technical difficulties, causing users to be unable to and the company to survey the issue.
On Wednesday afternoon, Fortnite servers failed to work cause gamers to receive a message saying they were not allowed to play the game. This infuriated many of the game’s users. Some took to social media to share their discontent.
During the same time period of Fortnite’s blackout, Epic Games’ store went offline for a brief time. They were able to restore the store server quickly, however, the popular game remained offline.
The company posted on Twitter their acknowledgment of the issue and to let users know the issue was not due to an update of any kind on their end. Later they tweeted saying that “game servers are currently offline while we investigate a solution to stability issues.”
Epic Games diligently worked to resolve the problem as they investigated “issues with downloading, installing and launching games in your Library.” Around 6:50 p.m. EST, they announced via Twitter they had resolved the issue. The company stated they would provide “more details next week on what we’re doing to help you make up for [the] lost time.”
Tim Sweeney, Epic Games CEO, has been in the headlines as he has battled major companies like Google and Apple when users make in-app purchases. Fortnite was removed from Apple’s App Store in 2020.
The reasoning behind the removal was cited to the game allowing users the ability to circumvent Apple’s fees and purchase items directly from Epic Games. The allowance violated Apple’s policy concerning in-app purchases.
Soon afterward, Epic Games sued the iPhone makers in a high-profile court case. The two big companies battled over Apple’s removal of in-app transactions and whether or not the phone maker is a monopoly.
Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers presided over that case in September. She sided with Apple on all but one of the lawsuit’s claims. Rogers stated that the iPhone makers cannot prevent app developers from offering users outside payment options.
After the judge’s decision was announced, Epic Games put in an appeal. Unfortunately, Fortnite has yet to return to the App Store.
Written by Sheena Robertson
Source:
CNN: After hours offline, Fortnite access has been restored; by Jennifer Korn
Top and Featured Image Courtesy of Official GDC’s Flickr Page – Creative Commons License
Inset Image by Sergey Galyonkin Courtesy of Wikimedia – Creative Commons License
