Probably. Gonna create a
lot of security issues for phone users, too. As if there aren't already enough.
Oh, and then people are going to sue Apple for failing to protect them.
Personally, I think this is more about Epic seeking to harvest data from their user's, because there is significantly more money in doing that than there is in selling a silly game (witness Facebook and Google, who make their trillion-dollar companies by harvesting user information). As of right now, harvesting data is restricted by Apple—and by extension—the user. Side-loading is going to give developers a lot of get-around power, especially if the court's make the stupid and uneducated claim that Apple must offer full access to all of the phone's features to side-loaded apps.
[Some] developers are making the claim that this is all about "consumer choice", but it's not. That's the smoke-and-mirrors ploy. Epic doesn't give a rat's ass about consumers, and a decision in Epic's favor is going to be very bad for consumers in a lot of ways. Very bad indeed.
Also, Epic has no intention of passing the savings on to consumers. They're going to charge the same (because they can—their customers are addicts), and then claim they have to in order to cover all of the distribution costs associated with the project.
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The court's duty in this case is to enforce contractual agreements, into which Epic entered. Those contracts are legal and binding. If the court's determine to undermine that contractual agreement, then they will be setting a terrible case of precedence that will have long-ranging and disastrous effects.
And, "developers and consumers don't have a choice!" is the lamest argument in history. All Epic has to do is go Android-only. There, see how that worked? They exercised their choice. Now they can side-load, their addicted customers can "choose" to buy Android instead of iPhone, and … Apple won't even feel a dent because people don't buy iPhones for Fortnite. They buy iPhones because iPhones fit their needs, and then they indulge in the available stew of apps for the platform they have chosen. And then, if Fortnite isn't available on iPhone, well, that's Epic's
choice!