Epic Games recently fanned the embers of war when they battled two of the biggest players in the smartphone industry, talking about Google and Apple. The game publisher has switched the payment system for its popular game Fortnite in favor of receiving direct payment for in-app purchases. Subsequently, Google and Apple removed Fortnite from the Play Store and App Store, respectively.
Epic Games' sole goal was to challenge Apple and Google's distribution monopolies on Android and iOS. Of course, the dispute has gone to court, but Apple does not seem to be going to wait for a verdict. Epic Games has reportedly raised the alarm that Apple has threatened to end support for the Unreal Engine in its ecosystem if it doesn't comply with the controversial App Store policies.
Unreal Engine is a free game engine that is popular with game publishers and is used by many developers around the world who, among other things, are deploying the engine to develop games for various platforms. If Apple drops support for the Unreal Engine, developers won't be able to fix security flaws or bug fixes.
This could affect a wide variety of games on iOS and macOS, including Microsoft's Forza. Even games on Apple's own subscription service Apple Arcade rely on the Unreal Engine. If Apple responds to the Unreal Engine, these developers will struggle to create new iOS games or create updates. The damage will extend beyond the Apple ecosystem as the popularity of Unreal Engine is due in part to its support for multiple platforms that will no longer be as profitable and will attract customers to other competing solutions.
Apple has given Epic a deadline of August 28 to “clear up breaches of agreement” before it goes ahead and terminates all Epic developer accounts and removes access to iOS and Mac development tools. To that end, Epic Games has filed a motion or injunction against Apple, a move reportedly backed by Microsoft to support Epic's motion for an injunction against Apple.
Epic Games believes that Apple's attack has moved from Fortnite to the company's entire business in unrelated areas, although they are governed by separate agreements and operated by separate legal entities.
It remains for the court to decide on the next step of action. Chances are, there are a few game developers out there looking to see this go the Epic path. We hope this will be done as soon as possible.
