A judge in California has ruled in a preliminary judgment Monday evening that Apple does not have to put Fortnite back in the App Store. However the judge also rules that EPIC can keep their dev license. Epic Gameswent to court for removing the game from the iPhone app store for violating its rules.

Epic recently added its own payment system to Fortnite where players could thus buy extras for the popular shooting game, that's bypassing Apple. That was a sore leg for Apple, which decided to remove Fortnite from its App Store. With the attempt to use its own payment system, Epic has acted against the rules of Apple. Digital purchases from the company must go through Apple. Companies have to pay a commission of 30 percent per transaction, which Epic deems unreasonable.

Because of the violation, Apple also threatened to revoke Epic's developer license. That would mean that Epic would no longer be able to maintain its Unreal Engine platform, which also runs other games. Microsoft, which uses the Unreal Engine, stated that license revocation would be "disastrous".

The judge has ruled that Apple may not revoke the license. "Epic Games and Apple are free to sue each other, but their conflict should not cause havoc among bystanders," said the judge. This is a preliminary ruling. In the final judgment, the court's decision might have different outcome.