Things move fast in the Epic Games vs Apple battle. After Fortnite was pulled from the App Store for breaking Apple’s rules – sneaking into a direct payment method to get around the in-app purchasing system, Epic almost immediately filed a lawsuit against Apple. Now the game developer says Apple is terminating its account.
Epic today shared the update on Twitter, calling the removal of his account a “fee” for filing a lawsuit against Apple. The developer says Apple plans to terminate all of its accounts and discontinue iOS and Mac development tools on August 28th.
Epic has asked the Northern District Court of California where it filed its lawsuit last week to block Apple from terminating its developer account in a new custody. But considering how Apple expressed that it was willing to work with Epic Games to get Fortnite back on the App Store and then Epic responded with a lawsuit and a calculated protest, that may not be very likely with Apple that here has the higher legal ground.
Here’s the opening of Epic’s latest submission after hearing that Apple is set to terminate its account:
Just over two weeks ago, Apple CEO Tim Cook was asked during a congressional hearing whether Apple “ever took revenge on or a developer who went public with his frustrations with the App Store.” Mr Cook testified, “We do not hate people like bullying. It is strongly against our corporate culture. ”1 But Apple just did. When Epic gave users of their Fortnite app a choice of how they wanted to make purchases, Apple retaliated by removing Fortnite from the App Store. When Epic filed for Apple to break its monopoly on app stores and in-app payments, Apple brutally declined. It told Epic that on August 28, Apple will suspend Epic’s access to all the development tools needed to create software for Apple’s platforms – including the Unreal Engine Epic offer to third-party developers, which Apple has never claimed has broken with Apple policy. Not content simple to remove Fortnite from the App Store, Apple is attacking Epic’s entire business in unrelated areas.
Epic claims that in addition to harming “millions of innocent consumers worldwide” who play Fortnite and its other games, Apple’s termination of its developer account is a threat to its Unreal Engine.
In addition, Apple’s revenge represents an existential threat to Epic’s Unreal Engine. OS vendors like Apple routinely make certain software and developer tools available to software developers, free of charge, for a small fee, to enable software development that will run on the OS. Apple intends to deny Epic access to that widely available material. Without that access, Epic will not be able to develop future versions of the Unreal Engine for use on iOS or macOS.
Background
When Apple pulled Fortnite over the direct payment method last week, an official statement from the company ended with “We will do our best to work with Epic to resolve these violations so that they can return Fortnite to the App Store.”
Shortly thereafter, Epic released this protest video based on Apple’s famous commercial from 1984, slamming Apple for running an “App Store Monopoly” and “Fortnite blocking a billion devices.” And just over an hour after Fortnite was removed from the App Store, Epic Games filed a lawsuit.
Epic does not seek monetary compensation from this Court for the injuries it suffered. Epic is also not seeking a favorable treatment for itself, a single company. Instead, Epic is looking for scams to allow fair competition in these two key markets that directly affect hundreds of millions of consumers and tens of thousands, if not more, of third-party app developers.
In a 9to5Mac poll, 51% of readers agreed with Apple pulling Fortnite. Another 35% agreed with Apple, but felt there should be App Store changes. Just 13% were of the opinion that Apple would not have launched the app.
With the fight between the two taking another big step, what do you think? Does it make sense for Apple to terminate Epic’s developer account? Or does it feel like revenge against you? Share your thoughts in the comments below!
My colleague Ben Lovejoy talked about four possible outcomes we could see from the lawsuit. Even though today’s news marks a major move by Apple, it may take a while before we see a verdict in the case, unless Epic chooses to go back.
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