Apple officially suspends Epic Games developer account, and the new season of "Fortnite" is no longer available on the App Store

Author | Bei Shuang

Apple finally takes action to delete Epic Games!

Yesterday, Apple officially closed Epic Games' developer account, which means that Epic Games will not be able to publish or update any apps on iPhone, iPad or Mac.

“We had to terminate the Epic Games account on the App Store,” Apple’s official statement said:

Epic has repeatedly submitted updates for Fortnite that violate the App Store's Usage Guidelines. This is unfair to all other developers on the App Store and puts other customers at risk. We hope to work together again in the future, but unfortunately, that is not possible today.

At the same time, Apple News Editor-in-Chief John Voorhess also immediately posted a post to tease: Today’s featured app is PUBG!

In fact, as early as August 14, Apple had warned Epic that if it continued to violate the App Store rules, it would completely close all Epic Games developer accounts after 14 days.

Today, Apple has done what it said. However, Apple did not delete the accounts related to the Unreal Engine in order to comply with the latest court ruling.

So, what is this conflict of interest all about?

In early August, Epic Games challenged Apple (and Google) by selling its product Fortnite directly to users, openly violating the App Store's payment rules.

Apple responded immediately and removed the offending app from the App Store.

As a result, Epic Games began to sue Apple.

It is understood that according to the App Store's payment rules, Apple will charge a 30% fee from all paid applications.

An analyst, Stephanie Chan, noted that since January 2012, Epic Games' mobile games have been downloaded more than 159 million times on the Apple App Store worldwide, generating about $1.2 billion in consumer spending, of which about $360 million went to Apple.

But when it comes to interests, Apple will never give in.

On August 14, Apple sent a warning email to Epic Games, requiring it to correct the violations within 14 days, otherwise its account on the App Store will be terminated.

Upon further review of activity related to your Apple Developer Program membership, we have identified several violations of the Apple Developer Program License Agreement. As a result, your Apple Developer Program account will be terminated if you do not correct the violations listed below within 14 days.

Terminating the account means closing Epic Games' developer account. This means that Epic Games can no longer submit all game updates and new products, including Fortnite, to the App Store platform, including iOS and Mac platforms.

On August 17, Epic Games publicly accused Apple on social media of not only banning the "Fortnite" app, but also threatening to ban Epic Games.

Apple responded by saying, “This problem can be easily resolved if Epic’s app updates comply with the App Store’s payment rules. We will not make an exception for Epic because it is wrong for them to put business interests above their customers.”

The reason why Apple has such a tough attitude is the strong and complete ecological support behind it. In this interest dispute case, Apple has absolute initiative. If it completely bans Epic according to the statement, it will be a fatal blow to Epic.

Specifically, this announcement affects the following Epic technologies, programs, and features:

• All Apple software, SDKs, APIs, and developer tools

• Pre-release versions of iOS, iPad OS, macOS, tvOS, watchOS

• Pre-release beta tools for Reality Composer, Create ML, Apple Configurator, and more

• macOS Application Notarization Service

• App Store Connect platform and support (e.g., assistance with account transitions, password resets, app name issues)

• TestFlight

• Access the provisioning portal to generate certificates, and generate provisioning profiles

• Ability to enable Apple services within apps (e.g. Apple Pay, CloudKit, PassKit, Music Kit, HomeKit, Push Notifications, Siri Shortcuts, Sign in with Apple, Kernel Extensions, FairPlay Streaming)

• Access Apple-issued keys to connect to services such as MusicKit, DeviceCheck, APNs, CloudKit, Wallet, etc.

• Access Developer ID Signing Certificates and Kernel Extension Signing Certificates

• Developer Technical Support

• Participate in the Universal App Quick Start Program, including using the Developer

Fortunately, the final court ruling can be said to have saved Epic's life. On August 25, the U.S. District Court ruled that Apple can continue to maintain the right to remove Fortnite from the App Store, but cannot prevent developers from accessing the Unreal Engine.

Unreal Engine is a game engine launched by Epic in 1998. According to the latest official introduction, it is a game development platform for next-generation game consoles and DirectX 9 personal computers, which can provide game developers with a large number of core technologies, data generation tools and basic support. It has been updated to version 4.25.

Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers said:

Apple cannot punish Epic Games by blocking developers from accessing the widely used Unreal Engine tools.

"Unreal Engine is a widely used creative tool suite for game developers, and Apple's move will cause serious damage to the Unreal Engine platform itself and the entire gaming industry, including third-party developers and gamers. Even if Epic Games violated the App Store's platform rules, it did not violate any contracts related to Unreal Engine and developers," Rogers emphasized.

On the same day, Kevin Gammill, general manager of Microsoft's game development department, and Phil Spencer, head of Xbox, also began speaking out on social media to support Epic.

Phil Spencer tweeted:

Today we filed a statement in support of Epic’s request for continued access to the Apple SDK for Unreal Engine. Ensuring Epic has access to the latest Apple technologies is the right thing to do for game developers and gamers alike.

In this matter, because it involves the interests of third parties and other industries, Apple did not get too entangled. The next day, it issued an official statement to accept Judge Rogers' opinion, but also stated that "if Fortnite is allowed to return to the App Store, it must still comply with the store's payment rules." This is an untouchable bottom line issue. The statement is as follows:

We appreciate the court’s recognition that Epic’s problems were entirely of its own making, and that it was able to fix them. Our top priority is ensuring that App Store users have a great experience in a safe and trusted environment, including those who play Fortnite and look forward to the next season of the game. We agree with Gonzalez Rogers that the “reasonable course of action” is for Epic to comply with the App Store’s rules and continue operating while the case is pending. If Epic takes the judge’s advice, we will welcome Fortnite back to iOS. We look forward to hearing our case in September.

On August 28, Apple completely removed Fortnite from its App Store and closed Epic Games’ developer account (excluding the Unreal Engine account) in accordance with its previous statement. So far, Epic has not made an official response, but this dispute over interests will not end here.

Judge Rogers said Epic can continue to appeal Apple's rules, a lawsuit that is expected to last for years.

In this dispute, Apple seems to have always been in the driver's seat, but in fact, it has no way out. Once Apple sets a precedent for Epic and breaks the operating rules of the App Store for more than a decade, it will inevitably lead to a chain reaction among other developers, which will not only bring huge economic losses, but also threaten the long-established business barriers.

So when facing Epic, the most successful developer in the App Store, Apple can only fight to the end.

Epic will not easily give up in this lawsuit. First of all, there is the huge financial loss. According to statistics from mobile application company Sensor Tower, as of mid-May, the revenue of Fortnite alone on Apple iOS devices reached 1 billion US dollars, which shows that Apple has made at least hundreds of millions of dollars in profit from the popular video game.

Secondly, its own enterprise scale and financial strength have been able to compete with Apple. Epic's products have covered millions of iOS customers around the world and it is one of the most successful developers in the App Store.

Finally, the App Store's "monopoly" behavior has caused a lot of dissatisfaction. The head of Blix said that they had filed a lawsuit against Apple in October last year for patent infringement and violation of antitrust laws. In addition, at the antitrust hearing held last month, Apple was also accused of violating free market competition.

Next, the direction of the case will depend on Epic’s further response.

Regarding this lawsuit, netizens have basically formed two major camps. One side believes that Apple is monopolizing the market with its unfair terms, while the other side believes that Epic is like an internet celebrity who wants to go solo once he becomes famous. What do you think about this?

Reference link:

• https://www.cnbc.com/2020/08/28/apple-suspends-fortnite-maker-epic-games-app-store-account.html

• https://techcrunch.com/2020/08/24/apple-ordered-to-not-block-epic-games-unreal-engine-but-fortnite-to-stay-off-app-store/

• https://www.marketwatch.com/story/apple-pulls-epics-app-store-developer-account-removing-all-of-its-games-2020-08-28-17103247

• https://www.leiphone.com/news/202008/ua9wFmlDw2nobkvO.html