Posted in: Epic Games, Games, Video Games | Tagged: apple

Apple Terminates Epic Games' Sweden Developer Account

The war between Apple and Epic Games continues as Apple terminated a dev account, which Epic claims is in retaliation over criticism.

Apple has decided to escalate its rivalry with Epic Games this week as they have terminated the company's developer account for the App Store. The two companies have been trading barbs for the past several years, going all the way back to when Fortnite first debuted on mobile. This latest tradeoff came today when word got out that Epic Games Sweden no longer had access to a developer account, which had been approved on February 16 via Apple DPLA through a "click-through" agreement, which isn't reviewed by Apple executives. But now three weeks later, that account was shut down.

According to a notice sent out by Epic Games to all of the media today, Apple admitted the reason for terminating the account was tied to this post from Tim Sweeney, founder and CEO of Epic Games. Sweeney has been critical of Apple in the past but has claimed he is not an "Apple hater." But there is a major difference between someone being mad they can't do blue texting on an Android or the costs of the latest iPhone, and constantly offering commentary about how you hate a company's business practices. That said, killing a dev account over a social media post is super petty, even for Apple. We have Epic's statement for you below, as we now wait to see what Apple will do after getting called out publicly for the retaliation.

We recently announced that Apple approved our Epic Games Sweden AB developer account. We intended to use that account to bring the Epic Games Store and Fortnite to iOS devices in Europe thanks to the Digital Markets Act (DMA). To our surprise, Apple has terminated that account and now we cannot develop the Epic Games Store for iOS. This is a serious violation of the DMA and shows Apple has no intention of allowing true competition on iOS devices. The DMA requires Apple to allow third-party app stores, like the Epic Games Store. Article 6(4) of the DMA says: "The gatekeeper shall allow and technically enable the installation and effective use of third-party software applications or software application stores using, or interoperating with, its operating system and allow those software applications or software application stores to be accessed by means other than the relevant core platform services of that gatekeeper."

In terminating Epic's developer account, Apple is taking out one of the largest potential competitors to the Apple App Store. They are undermining our ability to be a viable competitor and they are showing other developers what happens when you try to compete with Apple or are critical of their unfair practices.   If Apple maintains its power to kick a third party marketplace off iOS at its sole discretion, no reasonable developer would be willing to  utilize a third party app store, because they could be permanently separated from their audience at any time.

Apple said one of the reasons they terminated our developer account only a few weeks after approving it was because we publicly criticized their proposed DMA compliance plan. Apple cited this X post from this thread written by Tim Sweeney. Apple is retaliating against Epic for speaking out against Apple's unfair and illegal practices, just as they've done to other developers time and time again.  Apple also claims that Epic is a threat to their ecosystem, but this is an entirely unjustified excuse to terminate one of our accounts. Apple has been a long-time public supporter of Unreal Engine. We also have had ongoing contractual relationships with Apple going back to 2010 for Epic's games, Unreal Engine, and our other creator tools. 

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