Last Friday, August 28, Apple officially deleted the Epic Games developer account from its mobile platform. The main consequence: the company can no longer submit new games, and users download Fortnite and other company projects, even if they were previously installed. Unreal Engine was not affected by the removal.
As the company officially stated:
We are upset that we have to delete the Epic Games account from the App Store. We have been working with the Epic Games team on its launches and projects for many years. The court recommended Epic Games to follow the rules of the App Store while her lawsuit is being considered, the rules that she followed for the last ten years exactly before the situation she created. Epic Games refused. Instead, she repeatedly submitted updates to Fortnite that violated the App Store rules. This is unfair to all other developers on the App Store, and also puts users right in the middle of the conflict. We hope that in the future we will be able to work together again, but unfortunately it is not possible today.
Epic Games founder and CEO Tim Sweeney has denied Apple’s accusations. He stated that the company was not spamming at all. In total, three updates were sent for approval. Two of them were ruled by bugs, another one contained a new large-scale season. In fairness, the update with the season still contained the ability to bypass the App Store payment system.
Apple’s statement isn’t forthright. They chose to terminate Epic’s account; they didn’t *have* to.
Apple suggests we spammed the App Store review process. That’s not so. Epic submitted three Fortnite builds: two bug-fix updates, and the Season 4 update with this note. pic.twitter.com/VpWEERDp5L
— Tim Sweeney (@TimSweeneyEpic) August 28, 2020released an update for the iOS version of Fortnite, which allowed users to pay the publisher directly, bypassing the Apple payment system.
Что касается ситуации, то Apple сделало ровно то, что и обещала ранее с небольшой поправкой: из-за судебного запрета она пока не может лишить Epic Games доступа к своим SDK и API, а также отказать в поддержке Unreal Engine.
Напомним, нынешнее удаление — продолжение конфликта, который стартовал две недели назад. 13 августа Epic Games Immediately after that, Fortnite was removed from the App Store. Epic Games immediately sued Apple. In response, the Apple company threatened to remove Unreal Engine support from all its devices. Epic Games filed an additional petition, asking for the duration of the trial to freeze all Apple’s decisions regarding Epic Games (that is, not to delete the game, account and not to block the Unreal Engine). The court ruled during the preliminary hearing that Epic Games accounts that affect the work of third-party teams should not be touched by Apple, however, regarding the projects of the publisher itself, the corporation is in its right.
After that, Apple completely removed the Epic Games account, which was not associated with third-party developers.
Funny: on the day Epic Games was removed, Apple began actively promoting Fortnite’s main competitor, PUBG Mobile. This game is also made on Unreal Engine, which Sweeney did not fail to notice in his profile.
Previously, Epic Games was supported in a conflict with Apple by companies such as Facebook, Microsoft, Telegram, Spotify, Netflix, Airbnb and others. Moreover, Facebook even tried to release an update in which, when making a purchase, the user is informed that 30% of the amount goes to Apple. The Apple company refused to approve this version.
Also on the topic:
- The court has previously banned Apple from deleting Epic Games accountsIn response to the removal of Fortnite from the App Store, Epic Games sued Apple
- Apple has threatened to stop supporting Unreal Engine in iOS and Mac
- Is there any news?
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