Apple punishes Epic Games over spicy social media comments, closes Epic developer account before EGS store launches on iOS

[Redaktion]

The latest development in the war between Apple and Epic Games sees the tech giant close down Epic's developer account. Supposedly the reason for the account closure? A spicy social media post by Epic CEO, Tim Sweeney, on X (formerly Twitter), among others.

https://www.notebookcheck.net/Apple-punishes-Epic-Games-over-spicy-social-media-comments-closes-Epic-developer-account-before-EGS-store-launches-on-iOS.810953.0.html

[lmao]

it has nothing to do with 'punishment' actually.

apple had a court decision to close every epic developer account after epic breached ToS long ago. they decided to do it now, after untrustworthy epic behaviour. it's akin of asking a customer to leave store.
epic are playing a victim card "oh we wanted to make an alternate store and apple banned us for that", it's a lie. There's already a beta alternate store and apple does nothing to prevent it from happening:
www.theverge.com/2024/2/29/24086792/setapp-subscription-only-ios-app-store

eu has nothing to do with it because apple is US company and developer account contracts are under US jurisdiction, be it swedish company or american. eu can't force company to deal with another company, right? or can they? who knows how far eu is willing to go, but if they do, it'll not be a free market anymore, it's freaking ussr, where PARTY tells you who you have to work with.

and for added context, chinese tencent owns 40% of epic games.

[julian.vdm]

it has nothing to do with 'punishment' actually.

apple had a court decision to close every epic developer account after epic breached ToS long ago. they decided to do it now, after untrustworthy epic behaviour. it's akin of asking a customer to leave store.
epic are playing a victim card "oh we wanted to make an alternate store and apple banned us for that", it's a lie. There's already a beta alternate store and apple does nothing to prevent it from happening:
www.theverge.com/2024/2/29/24086792/setapp-subscription-only-ios-app-store

eu has nothing to do with it because apple is US company and developer account contracts are under US jurisdiction, be it swedish company or american. eu can't force company to deal with another company, right? or can they? who knows how far eu is willing to go, but if they do, it'll not be a free market anymore, it's freaking ussr, where PARTY tells you who you have to work with.

and for added context, chinese tencent owns 40% of epic games.

Regardless of whether Apple did it with the authority of the court, it still did it as a retaliatory move. It's akin to YouTube removing any YouTubers that criticise the platform. Legal and within YouTube's rights? Sure. Punitive and perhaps unfair? Also probably.

From what I understand, when a developer breaches ToS, Apple removes the infringing app until it no longer beaches ToS. The outright blocking that's happening here is definitely beyond normal actions.

[lmao]

Regardless of whether Apple did it with the authority of the court, it still did it as a retaliatory move.

The outright blocking that's happening here is definitely beyond normal actions.

again. real court case, real court decision. it's not a 'youtube ban for criticizing'.

apple statements:
"Epic's egregious breach of its contractual obligations to Apple led courts to determine that Apple has the right to terminate 'any or all of Epic Games' wholly owned subsidiaries, affiliates, and/or other entities under Epic Games' control at any time and at Apple's sole discretion'. In light of Epic's past and ongoing behavior, Apple chose to exercise that right."

"Apple recently reached out directly to Mr. Sweeney to give him an opportunity to explain why Apple should trust Epic this time and allow Epic Games Sweden AB to become an active developer. Mr. Sweeney's response to that request was wholly insufficient and not credible. It boiled down to an unsupported 'trust us.' History shows, however, that Epic is verifiably untrustworthy, hence the request for meaningful commitments."
 
any attempt to play victim card here is a lie by Epic.

[anan]

Yeah... I was kinda wondering if Apple would allow en Epic store to crop up. This answers the question.
They left Epic's dormant developer account and now they've disabled it in order not to allow the Epic store to go up.

[lmao]

They left Epic's dormant developer account and now they've disabled it in order not to allow the Epic store to go up.

they disabled it because they had a court decision allowing them to do so. they contacted Sweeney prior to ban to communicate what are the guarantees he will not just break ToS again and play a victim when caught and he said "trust me bro". apple decided to implement their legal right. Sweeney immediately played victim.

guy is untrustworthy and can't behave. his own store is taking 12% fee just for being represented. Sweeney was the one to massively introduce lootboxes into AAA gaming and got into legal issues for it. he doesn't care about users. just as an example of what apple means by being 'verifiably untrustworthy'

$245 million FTC settlement alleges Fortnite owner Epic Games used digital dark patterns to charge players for unwanted in-game purchases

www.ftc.gov/business-guidance/blog/2022/12/245-million-ftc-settlement-alleges-fortnite-owner-epic-games-used-digital-dark-patterns-charge