Apple
has terminated
Epic Games Sweden AB
developer account. Complying with the EU’s
Digital Markets Act
(DMA), this account would’ve helped the gaming studio to bring the
Epic Games Store
and
Fortnite
to iPhones in Europe. With Apple terminating the account, the Fortnite-maker won’t be able to develop the
Epic Games
Store for iOS.
Epic Games CEO
Tim Sweeney took to micro-blogging site X (previously Twitter) to criticise Apple’s decision.
Read what Epic Games CEO has to say
In an X post, Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney said: “Thanks to everyone who is speaking up against Apple blocking Epic from competing with their App Store.
On PC, we’ve served over 270,000,000 customers, so the victims of Apple’s competition bans include hundreds of millions of future customers on iOS who are deprived of better deals on games and better cross-platform gaming and social features, as well as hundreds of thousands of developers who are stuck under Apple’s tax regime.
Competition is a fragile thing. Apple can crush it not only by banning it outright as it did pre-DMA, but also by selectively blocking specific competitors like us, and by sowing fear among all developers who’d like to partner with us to reach users, and by users who fear buying apps on a third-party store Apple can block at any time.
Apple is doing everything they can to sow fear so that, even if they’re forced to end this blockade, every developer will know Apple can crush any of us on a whim, and therefore that competition is futile. It’s a sad slope for the world’s most respected company to be slipping down, but slipping it is, and it’s a long way down.”
Why Apple terminated Epic Games developer account
Epic Games noted that Apple terminated its developer account a few weeks after approving it. The gaming studio publicly criticised Apple's proposed DMA compliance plan and this may be one of the reasons for the iPhone maker to take such a decision, Epic Games claimed.
The company has also shared documents showing that Apple terminated its European developer account because Epic CEO Tim Sweeney publicly stated that he disagrees with Apple’s app store policies.
Commenting on the account termination, Epic Games said: “This is a serious violation of the DMA and shows Apple has no intention of allowing true competition on iOS devices.”
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