Apple to terminate developer account of Epic Games on August 28th | Hacker News Reader

Apple to terminate developer account of Epic Games on August 28th

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66 pointstosh21 comments

Relevant: https://cdn2.unrealengine.com/epic-v-apple-8-17-20-768927327...

Dupe: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24190556 - Main discussion here

This is getting interesting. Looks like Apple wants to set an example. I'm wondering what Epic is going to do after this...

https://twitter.com/slasher/status/1295434558112960519?s=21

Apparently this also applies to all apps using Unreal Engine.

Epic is not saying that Apple is removing gams that rely on UE. (https://cdn2.unrealengine.com/epic-v-apple-8-17-20-768927327...)

What Epic is saying that they will no longer be able to make any updates to UE, which will effectively kill it as a viable business.

If that is true, then it seems EPIC's case is made stronger by this action.

How can Apple kick off thousands (10's of thousands?) of apps, which just happened to use the development kit provided by another party Apple's involved in a lawsuit with.

Yeah the sheer level of stupidity of that move combined with it not being clear to me that “Epic cannot use our developer tools” => “we will remove/prevent updates to any third party app that has used them” makes me think Epic may be embellishing here for the benefit of the public. I think Apple may have just done the “remove their account” part and Epic is adding as many nastily implications of that as possible.

I’m extremely suspicious of basically anything factual these companies say about this whole matter; there’s too much money on the line for there to be much voluntary truth telling involved.

Even if no UE-dependent games are removed now, they’re all at risk because Epic would no longer be able to fix any bugs for them, or maintain the engine. And, Apple has forced maintenance on developers quite often; it’s only a matter of time before some platform-breaking boundary must be crossed again, which none of the UE-dependent games would be able to manage without Epic’s involvement.

Oh I agree. My suspicion is that Apple’s intent was to revoke their developer account/iTunes Connect access but not attempt to enforce their inability to use XCode; there may be legal language to that effect but you’ve been able to install XCode and generate iOS provisioning profiles without a developer account for some time now. I can’t imagine that any Apple executives think the recent anti-trust hearings went so well that they think they can get away with this sort of snipe.

that's not what apple is doing

they're only revoking epic's devtools, and ability to make NEW unreal engine versions, old UE versions are unaffected

If you look into the court docs, Epic says Apple revoking access to their dev tools negatively affects Epic's ability to support Unreal Engine, which negatively affects many apps. Not that apps using Unreal will get kicked off App Store.

Edit: It looks like Apple is not removing all Unreal Engine games. See Brandon Smith's comment below.

Is this confirmed? Apple would be removing PUBG Mobile (#5 in Strategy, millions in revenue - which Apple presumably gets 30%) which uses unreal Engine 4.

Without a developer account, EPIC can't update Unreal Engine on iOS?

Epic is misleading a bit...

Epic is claiming that without access to developer tools, it cannot properly develop the Unreal Engine for other parties to develop against.

Reading the legal document, it does not appear Apps that use Unreal Engine are threatened to be removed. Only that Epic cannot improve the Unreal Engine.

Misleading is something certain game companies are very good at

Going to be very ugly if UE games cannot run on iOS devices, very ugly, and seems neither wants to back down at the moment.

Interesting. It seems both parties just wanna have an outcome and be done with it for everybody.

Games are an I interesting field, as they have many micro transactions over a long period of time, which actually add up to more than most subscriptions (which use a 15% revenue share after the first year)

It’s funny that every company that goes against Apple is the underdog, including Aramco (if they ever did, Ha!).

Doesn't Epic ban kids when they violate the Fortnite TOS?

Epic knew what they were doing. I have no sympathy for them.

Removing the app is a logical consequence.

Terminating the whole account and restricting dev tools while they make one of the most used game engines on iOS, that's quite far reaching. Reeks of retaliation. I'm sure they will duke it out in court.

Fortnite isn’t as important as a Phone system that 90% of the teens in the US use and 50% of everybody in the US uses as well.

You cannot have a successful mobile app business without being in Apple’s app store.

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