Apple was ordered to allow Unreal Engine made games to be released on their platform but Fortnite will stay off the market (for now).
“The record shows potential significant damage to both the Unreal Engine platform itself, and to the gaming industry generally, including on both third-party developers and gamers,” she said, adding that even as Epic Games violated App Store’s guidelines, it did not breach any contracts related to Unreal Engine and developer tools."
“Epic Games claimed last week that developers were already leaving Unreal Engine as uncertainty loomed over its future on Apple ecosystem.”
Apple just said they were going to ban UE to set the bar high so when they met half way they would be back to where they started (Fortnite’s banning). If they wouldn’t of mention UE then the focus would be purely on Fortnite and meeting halfway could have been fortnite stays on store with the new purchase option but at the same rate as the apple purchase rate (or something like that).
Here’s one of those details we don’t usually consider: Epic International are the ones who provide iOS support in UE, not Epic Games. The injunction seems to have been granted partially on the basis that Epic International is an affiliate.
This. Apple can afford to not have Fortnite on their store, they have so so much more money than Epic has. Epic on the other hand can not afford it, much more if their shareholders (especially Tencent) pressure them about the loss of profits.
This is a win for Apple, and a loss for Epic, who was aiming to get Fortnite back on the Apple store but without having to pay the 30% share for their microtransactions (Epic wanted 0%).
There are several things I don’t like about the whole subject. I can’t agree on Epic doing the move on Fortnite to suddenly put an option to make Apple receive 0% from a purchase, but on the other hand I agree that it should be possible to have other payment options, because 30% is too much and the way it is nothing would stop Apple in the future to raise that much for like 50% or 70%… they could if they wanted and this sort of move is possible because they monopolize the payment option. When you have business as big as Epic has, a good governance dictates how contracts with other parties should be to grant less risk to the company, then investors can rest assured that if a company follows basic guidelines it is a safe bet. Would you put your money in a company which has a contract with another company that could at any time be responsible for cutting more than 30% from your products? Wouldn’t you expect to have this value at least fixed forever or negotiable down after some time the product is on the store? Again, by those contracts nothing would stop Apple on increasing those 30% to 50% or even more.
Nevertheless, 30% is way too much, think how much work is to have an app developed, tested, and someone will easily grab 30% of your sales for the effort of maintaining a “app store”? I doubt they have a mathematician or a physics doctorate employee working on their side to have that “app store” running… These are another despicable facts imo.
So now that Apple has deleted the Epic Developer account, does this mean they can no longer provide, or even work on updates for Unreal Engine and Twinmotion for Mac?
What was terminated is the developer account used to publish Fortnite on iOS/Mac, the other accounts are on a different party id, so Unreal Engine won’t be affected… for now.
As I understand it, yes, the developer tools for the “Epic Games” account were deleted so the “company” can’t publish software for iOS and Mac. This software would also include Twinmotion and Unreal Engine (the GUI app) for Mac, no? Since both are published by Epic, wouldn’t both apps also be lost in the battle?
So far, there are different accounts, each one paying Apple’s development fee, and the one which rights were revoked is the one used to publish Fortnite. The account publishing Fortnite refers a company established in US while the other referring to Unreal Engine is established in Sweden. So far, Epic Games has around 10 subsidiaries distributed over the world, so those can’t be considered the same party in regards of contract acceptance. Another point is that there is a contract which rules the Apple Store and another contract that rules the Development tools, and the contract and rules which were broken were about the Apple Store. Also, the judge restrained Apple to do any move to harm Epic and their subsidiaries in regards to the development tools, but they were still allowed to have Fortnite pulled out from the store and act (there could be some technicalities on the decision made by Apple) accordingly the contract rules regarding the Apple Store.
The video mentioned some posts above is part of a the series of videos containing all the legal details regarding the process from the beginning and up to now.
This is not a great summation. I guess we need another clarification.
Epic Games own Fortnite. Fortnite was pulled from the app store and the developer accounts associated with it closed.
Epic International, a different company, own Unreal Engine. Their developer account was also disabled, so they can’t generate new signing keys (which is required periodically) or end-to-end test the iOS publishing workflow (which is already pretty rough around the edges). This gets in the way of future iOS support, but as we all know they could quietly make another account and keep going.
There’s a lot more we can speculate on (Mac going to ARM and unifying their app store doubles down on the anti-trust, future of iOS on UE, etc) but the most relevant part right now is that Epic International has been granted an injunction reversing Apple’s actions against them.
For me the biggest concern was “would Epic continue to support the Apple ecosystem if they couldn’t publish on it themselves” and the conclusion I reached is that the work has already been done, the money invested and teams exist to support it. It might not get any better, but it’ll keep being supported the way it has been.
As far is relevant to everyone concerned about the continuity of support, few things need to be considered, because Apple can’t ban Unreal Engine platform for development of games, that would be firing on their own foot. Since the UE4 source code is available to everyone, any other party could take the responsibility to maintain a UE4 branch supporting iOS if they have a license agreement with Apple development tools and none can’t even tell that this other party can still be Epic under the hood, provided they take precautions
Now, if Apple is ever willing to ban any application made with Unreal, regardless who owns the account used to make the engine work with iOS tools, than this I am sure will favor the antitrust case, and really this is something that if Apple takes action, they might be prepared for instant injunction by any judge involved on the matter.
So far, I know lots of people who abandoned their Apple devices to have the ability to play the game, another amount shifted for playing on PCs, and about the same amount just not playing anymore, so I guess each group is 33% so far (from only the people I know).
I’ll always be slightly concerned that Apple could sunset everything using an interpreted code framework. They started out not wanting non-Apple frameworks on their store and that’s the way it was for a long time. UE doesn’t technically run interpreted code, but the aim would be to remove other frameworks from their marketplace. They probably won’t while there’s a lot of products using Unity and UE on the app store, but if Apple ever get their **** together enough to make their own game engine then I’d start getting my plan B together. That’s the thing I’m always watching out for.
The unification of their mobile and desktop platforms mean this is more possible than ever. Epic has just managed to give them another grievance to add to the list of “dumb reasons Apple do ****.”
I feel both companies came out looking very bad and has shaken confidence in the people who deal with each of them. Epic for going about it as they did in the first place, and Apple for seriously overreaching in their response.
It does seem everything is at risk though, at least for the moment. What Epic has done, though, is gotten the court, with the temporary restraining order, to now have issued ruling consistent with the argument that Apple is “too big”, as it viewed severing the Unreal Engine piece at this immediate time could harm the public good. This restraining order will be reviewed by the court in a month (9-28-2020). Now, keep in mind, also, that the same judge who made this ruling also is already currently hearing a separate case involving another app developer, who has a little earlier filed a case claiming Apple is a monopoly (Cameron v Apple)…so, this other case’s momentum either will give legs or shunt back Epic’s case.
So, imagine if the court agrees with claim by other app developer, and continues to renew the restraining order. This will mean Apple might feel pressured to settle with the parties, likely reducing the 30%. However, imagine if the court does not agree with the other app developer, and does not continue to enforce the restraining order involving Unreal Engine. Bye bye iOS?..
BUT - In any event, there could be appeals, and talks, cases dragging on, and on, and on, settlement talks…public sentiment momentum will play a role, etc…so a lot does appear at risk.
And with great risk could come great reward.
Totally separate, I wonder how much support Epic will give Apple integrations if in fact Apple and Epic break…ie - iOS ARKit and the iPad/iPhone camera-controller thing
Because, Epic would encourage the purchase of Apple devices if in fact the Apple iOS ARKit and iPad controller remains a part of UE4 / UE5.
That’s like a (1) “use UE + iOS together” pro-Apple marketing campaign existing in direct conflict with (2) anti-Apple marketing campaign message of the recent Fortnite add.
As well, I wonder if internally all Apple products are going to be abandoned for Epic workplace staff? Macs, iPhones, iPads, iWatch…
Are they still going to be on display at Epic events and Web classes, etc.
What kind of message does that convey that you are anti-Apple but then shown supporting Apple products simultaneously…
I guess a mixed one…eh, what else is new, right?
We are like kids watching our parents going through a divorce.
Along those lines I heard Unity is having to do a ton of work to port their Editor to Apple Silicone chips. Not sure if Epic would also have to do a lot of work to get the editor working with the new chips or if it’s already been done?
I don’t understand why Apple, in a recent letter to judge, would claim that ongoing Unreal Engine support on iOS could be used as a Trojan Horse by Epic to implant malware into the iOS ecosystem. It’s slanderously speculative #1, but also puts on the table that actually Apple is admitting it is powerless to maintain the health of its own ecosystem. Consider, using Apple’s own logic, that if any non-Epic 3rd party were then theoretically be able to do that merely by having developer-access on the iOS platform, it would mean any and all of Apple’s arguments, being made in the name of safety, are then unfounded. Because either every developer could do it, or none could…Sounds like an unforced error by Apple.
That is a good point. I thought that was a strange comment by Apple also. Any app can just auto download malware a month after it’s been approved or whatever, you don’t need Unreal Engine for that. Really though much of this is just Apples way of going on the offensive and giving themselves leverage. At bottom they absolutely positively do not want to be forced to change the app store business model by the courts.
It’s pretty clear though that Apple is willing to opt out of the future of the gaming industry. If Google Stadia, Xcloud and all Unreal Engine games really are banned from iOS moving forward then Apple is going off on their own even more then usual.
