Apple digs hole deeper, terminates Epic's iOS Dev account

After the court ruled that Apple did not need to be stopped from doing so, Apple has terminated Epic Games’s developer account, meaning their games such as Fortnite or Infinity Blade have been completely removed from the app store on iOS.

This means that users are no longer able to re-download any of their games, and even in-app purchases no longer work.

In a statement Apple said:

We are disappointed that we have had to terminate the Epic Games account on the App Store. We have worked with the team at Epic Games for many years on their launches and releases. The court recommended that Epic comply with the App Store guidelines while their case moves forward, guidelines they’ve followed for the past decade until they created this situation. Epic has refused. Instead they repeatedly submit Fortnite updates designed to violate the guidelines of the App Store. This is not fair to all other developers on the App Store and is putting customers in the middle of their fight. We hope that we can work together again in the future, but unfortunately that is not possible today.

Apple had earlier been temporarily restrained from blocking Epic Games’s developer account as related to Unreal Engine, and that remains in place at present. This is mainly due to the harm this would cause to other developers, however.

It is hard not to see the whole situation as Apple being trapped into repeatedly making a case against itself when it eventually comes to antitrust hearings, with Epic clearly aiming for the bigger pay-off of overturning Apple’s rules completely, versus simply achieving small and temporary concessions.

Do our readers agree that it looks like Apple is involved in a chess game (likely with the end goal of Epic’s own game store being allowed on iOS) in which Apple is always a few steps behind? Let us know below.

via The Verge