Epic’s battle with Apple and its “monopolistic” practices are getting, well, epic. According to new legal documents shared by Epic, Apple will be terminating all of the Fortnite maker’s accounts on Friday, August 28. Obviously, this has serious implications for the company, as well as developers who leverage its game creation tools. Unreal Engine is essentially getting banned from Mac and iOS.
Apple removed Fortnite from the App Store and has informed Epic that on Friday, August 28 Apple will terminate all our developer accounts and cut Epic off from iOS and Mac development tools. We are asking the court to stop this retaliation. Details here: https://t.co/3br1EHmyd8
— Epic Games Newsroom (@EpicNewsroom) August 17, 2020
“…Apple retaliated ferociously,” a preliminary statement reads. “It told Epic that by August 28, Apple will cut off Epic’s access to all development tools necessary to create software for Apple’s platforms—including for the Unreal Engine Epic offers to third-party developers, which Apple has never claimed violated any Apple policy. Not content simply to remove Fortnite from the App Store, Apple is attacking Epic’s entire business in unrelated areas.”
Epic’s lawyers are moving as quickly as they can to convince the courts to shut Apple down. “Left unchecked, Apple’s actions will irreparably damage Epic’s reputation among Fortnite users and be catastrophic for the future of the separate Unreal Engine business.”