The trench war between the two companies is getting tense.

Last week, Epic Games filed a lawsuit against Apple (as well as Google) due to monopolistic practises on the iOS App Store (plus Google Play), after challenging the company over the in-app payments by providing customers to cut the middle man and pay Epic directly for the microtransactions. In retaliation, both Google and Apple have removed Fortnite from their respective store, which in turn resulted in Tim Sweeney‘s company launching a PR campaign that follows 1984’s style. (Facebook has also joined the fun against Apple.)

Now, Epic filed a motion seeking a temporary restraining against Apple, as the tech company informed them about violating the Apple Developer Program License Agreement, and that means all of Epic’s developer accounts, as well as access to iOS and Mac development tools, will be wiped on August 28. Epic claims in the filing that they expect to win the case against Apple (and Google) „on the merits of their claims.” However, they need a temporary injunction as they’d be „irreparably harmed” before the judgement comes in case if Apple is allowed to do what it wants, and this goes beyond Fortnite: „If the Unreal Engine can no longer support Apple platforms, the software developers that use it will be forced to use alternatives. The damage to Epic’s ongoing business and its reputation and trust with its customers will be unquantifiable and irreparable.”

The new lawsuit’s goal for Epic is to prevent Apple from „removing, de-listing, refusing to list or otherwise making unavailable” Fortnite and its updates in the App Store (while allowing Epic to directly offer the purchase of V-Bucks), plus to prohibit any other Epic game as well as its Unreal Engine to remove. The consequences will be dire if the order isn’t granted. „Apple’s retaliation represents an existential threat to Epic’s Unreal Engine. OS providers like Apple routinely make certain software and developer tools available to software developers, for free or a small fee, to enable the development of software that will run on the OS. Apple intends to deny Epic access to that widely available material,” Epic’s lawsuit says. „The ensuing impact on the Unreal Engine’s viability and the trust and confidence developers have in that engine, cannot be repaired with a monetary award. This is quintessential irreparable harm,” it continues. They don’t want the devs to switch to other engines, such as Unity.

Meanwhile, Apple won’t suffer „irreparable harm” if this injunction is ordered, according to the suit, as they could be monetarily redressed later. Tim Sweeney, Epic Games’ CEO and founder, says: „Developers invest considerable time and resources learning to use and to develop games based on Unreal Engine, often with the expectation that those games will be supported on Apple’s platforms. This is particularly true because the mobile gaming category is substantially larger than computing or console gaming, and mobile remains a high-growth area in the gaming industry.

If Epic can no longer develop future updates for the Unreal Engine that support iOS and macOS, developers will not choose to use Unreal Engine to develop any games or other products for use on Apple devices. The loss of Unreal Engine’s ability to support these important platforms will, therefore, cause irreparable harm to Epic’s product offering, as many developers will select a competing engine for their new projects or the next versions of their games,” he said.

„I’m fighting Apple policies while tweeting on iPhone. Don’t hate the players, hate the game. Apple made a storefront where developers have to bid against each other for searches for our brands while blocking other stores from competing with them, all “to protect customers”. If we don’t fight for our rights where we stand, we’ll eventually run out of places to retreat to, and by then we’ll be too weak and divided to win. This is why developers need to fight the store monopolies here and now!”, Sweeney wrote on Twitter. That sounded a bit like talking about the Epic Games Store.

Where’s our popcorn?

Source: PCGamer

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