Apple’s counterattack: cutting Epic’s hands, banning all games using Unreal Engine for development

Epic has challenged Apple, now is the time for the giants to counterattack. Yesterday, Epic Games’ Twitter account said that Apple was threatening to revoke the license to use developer tools on iOS and Epic’s Mac on August 28th – this means apps uses Epic tools, including the Unreal Engine, for development to no longer be certified to run on iOS and Macs.

This not only keeps Epic from failing to update Fortnite on iOS, but also affects every game that uses Epic’s Unreal Engine to develop – including other developers outside of Epic.

Therefore, Epic filed a preliminary petition against Apple, asking the court to quickly stop this action. In its petition, Epic said, it would cause ” harm that cannot be fixed long before a final court ruling arrives ” if a warrant is not obtained.

” Apple’s actions will inflict irreparable damage on Epic’s reputation for Fortnite users and wreak havoc on the future of the Unreal Engine business in particular .” Epic said. In addition, in its complaint, Epic also asked Fortnite – with a lower price and an external payment option – to be returned to the App Store.

Apparently this is a strong retaliation for Apple.

Removing Epic from its development program was not only a blow to Epic’s apps, but also shut down the Unreal Engine, a tool that is already widely used by game developers. The fact that the engine is unlicensed to develop apps on iOS and Mac could have caused a slew of developers to leave Epic and isolate the company from the marketplace.

It can be seen that the digital war between Epic and Apple is no longer an internal affair of the two companies, but has now spread to other companies using their development tools. In other words, a great war in the digital world has begun.

Refer to The Verge