Apple Cutting Off Epic’s Access to All iOS and Mac Development Tools

[Tsing]

Image: Epic Games



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...

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[SeymourGore]

I imagine this move by Apple won't be well regarded by the courts. It definitely appears retaliatory.

 

[xGryfter]

They are pretty much saying that any developer who does business with Epic is not welcome on the Apple store. Wouldn't this hurt Apple more than hinder Epic? Given the sheer number of games that use the Unreal Engine the iPhone would lose quite a bit of content. If hundreds of developers can lose access to Apple products because of Apple throwing a tantrum over one company why should developers trust them moving forward?

Hopefully the courts will put a stop to this as it seems Apple is just doubling down on why Epic is suing them in the first place.

 

[Brian_B]

Wouldn't this hurt Apple more than hinder Epic?

Well, really depends on how it plays out in court - both litigation and court of public opinion.

First off, OS X revenue is nothing - aside from a few ports that rarely get played at all, OS X gaming has been dead for a long time. But iOS gaming is definitely not dead, and is on par with PC or any major console with respect to revenue generated.

There are Unreal based iOS apps, but the bread and butter apps (in terms of revenue) don't tend to use Unreal. Roblox, Pokemon Go, Candy Crush, and Clash of Clans, and games of that ilk are all among the top revenue generators. I don't know where Fortnite sits in there, App Annie only tracks recent activity and I don't have an account to see historicals.

Sure, losing all Unreal-based titles may sting a little, but it stings a heck of a lot less than losing % revenue on everything in the App Store. Whereas Epic loses access to a pretty large market for them - 2019 iOS saw about $37B in gaming revenue, and outpaced Android revenue by almost a factor of 4. To contrast, Sony saw $18B in Playstation revenue in 2019, and PC gaming saw about $30B - by those counts Apple represents the single biggest gaming marketplace, even if it's full of Tencent click clones.

Some sources, I didn't make the numbers up, but I can't guarantee these sources didn't:

Top Grossing Games Apps | US | Top App Store Rankings for iOS

See the Top Games iOS Apps in US on the App Store Charts by Free, Paid, and Top Grossing. Sensor Tower provides a detailed visualization of the top ranking apps by category and country, along with app ranking changes and review ratings!

sensortower.com

Mobile games revenue increased by 13% to $61.7 billion in 2019

Revenue earned from mobile games grew to $61.7 billion in 2019, according to Sensor Tower . After earning $54.7 billion in 2018, the figure increased by an estimated 13 per cent to solidify the ma...

www.pocketgamer.biz

.

2019 was the second best year ever for PlayStation - KitGuru

There’s no denying that coming into the next generation of consoles, the PlayStation brand is the st

www.kitguru.net

.

SuperData: Games hit $120.1 billion in 2019, with Fortnite topping $1.8 billion

The combined game industry grew 3% to $120.1 billion in 2019, according to SuperData. Fortnite generated $1.8 billion in the year.

venturebeat.com

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[Zarathustra]

I imagine this move by Apple won't be well regarded by the courts. It definitely appears retaliatory.

I don't know.

They have a contract with terms, Epic violated the terms, so now they are being cut off.

Seems pretty straight forward to me.

 

[Zarathustra]

I have no love for either Apple or Epic.

Whoever wins, a company I don't like will get hurt.

Pass the popcorn.

 

[SeymourGore]

I don't know.

They have a contract with terms, Epic violated the terms, so now they are being cut off.

Seems pretty straight forward to me.

From what I understand this latest move by Apple affects Epic on the developer engine side. So, developers utilizing Unreal Engine will have a difficult time bringing their games to the Apple platform. Or who knows. I've only read the statement brought out by Epic and they might be trying to paint it in as negative a window as possible.

The timing doesn't look great either, if Apple removed Epic's developer status (or whatever it is) when they initially removed FortNite it'd probably be easier to not view it as retaliatory for the lawsuit. But then for Apple to escalate the punishment after Epic's lawsuit - I dunno.

With that said, I'm not really for either company. At the end of the day, they're both greedy and looking to get bigger.

 

[Uvilla]

Apple will lose... Otherwise it will suck MORE for everyone as a customer.

 

[Brian_B]

With that said, I'm not really for either company. At the end of the day, they're both greedy and looking to get bigger.

This is the truth of it.

Apple probably stands to lose more, albeit not immediately. There's an entire generation of up-and-coming consumers who used to think of Apple as the epitome of cool. They are out there playing Fortnite and Minecraft and Roblox, and throwing tons (Billions) of their parent's cash at those games.

Now Epic is trying to paint Apple as the villain, and largely succeeding. In 1-2 years time, all these 10-16 year olds won't be asking for iPhones and Airpods for Christmas anymore. And in 10 years time, when all these 10-16 year olds are out with their own jobs with their own cash and looking to buy devices won't be buying from Apple any more - they will remember Apple as the Big Corporate soulless villain, much like a lot of us remember Apple painting IBM that way in the '80s.

Now maybe that's a small effect, and Apple's marketing machine can overpower it with clever dancing shadow ads and another "I'm a PC" guy. But you take away a kid's video game and it's going to have consequences, even if you win in court.

This battle may go to a court room, but the real verdict is going to be who can force the other to knuckle because of public pressure. And right now Apple is about 10 steps behind in that game.

 

[Nanobot]

I think you might be over-estimating the impact a single video game will have on the teenage mind. They'll be on to the next big thing any day now. Epic's problem with Fortnite is that going f2p meant relying on iap for revenue. Now that the "pro" players aren't buying flashy skins a lot of people are following suit. Maybe they should sue those players for influencing people to spend less money.

 

[magoo]

This is humorous.
Do you honestly think anyone in the real world who has more to do than play video games or come up for air from their iPhone gives a (fill in 4 letter word) either way?
Not me.
Lawyers getting rich.
Think about this for a minute....the US has about 5 % of the worlds population and files over 80% of all litigation.......

 

[LeRoy_Blanchard]

Don't forget, Google banned Fortnite from the Play store as well. Granted, they didn't ban the Unreal Engine Development tools as well, but they're no better than Apple in this situation.

 

[Burticus]

Epic will cave, but they might force Apple and Google to cut them a deal better than 30%. Fortnite is HUGE biz.