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Apple Terminates Epic Games' Developer Account

Shard Shinjuku

Shard Shinjuku

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Oct 25, 2017
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www.macrumors.com

Apple Terminates Epic Games' Developer Account

Apple in mid-August said that it would terminate Epic Games' developer account if the Fortnite app continued to break the App Store rules, and...
www.macrumors.com www.macrumors.com


Apple in mid-August said that it would terminate Epic Games' developer account if the Fortnite app continued to break the App Store rules, and today, Apple followed through with that threat and removed Epic's access to the Epic Games account.


Fortnite has been unavailable for a few weeks, but other Epic Games titles like Battle Breakers and Infinity Blade Stickers were still in the ‌App Store‌. Now that the Epic Games developer account has been terminated, those apps are gone.

Searching for Epic Games in the ‌App Store‌ brings up no apps and on the web, the Epic Games developer account is blank. Though the Epic Games developer account is no longer available, Fortnite continues to work.

Those who have downloaded Fortnite on an iPhone or iPad can continue to play the game, but there's a catch - none of the new Marvel-themed Season 4 content is available because Fortnite is unable to be updated.

Fortnite has been in violation of the ‌App Store‌ rules since August 13, when it introduced a direct payment option that skirted Apple's in-app purchase system by allowing payments directly to Epic Games. Shortly after Epic blatantly disregarded ‌App Store‌ policies, Apple pulled the app from the ‌App Store‌, leading to a lawsuit from Epic and a quickly escalating legal fight between the two companies.

Since Epic initiated the dispute with Apple, it has refused to back down from the direct purchase option added to Fortnite, and Apple has refused to allow the app in the ‌App Store‌ while the direct payment option remains. Apple told Epic that it was ready to "welcome Fortnite back onto iOS" if Epic removed the direct payment option and returned to the status quo while the legal battle plays out in court, but Epic has refused.

Last night, Epic sent out emails to Fortnite players blaming the unavailability of the new season on Apple and claming that Apple is "blocking Fortnite" in order to prevent Epic Games from "passing on the savings from direct payments to players." Apple in turn has taken to featuring Fortnite competitor PUBG in its ‌App Store‌.
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This termination is in relation to the mainlines Epic Games account and not the Unreal Engine account.
 
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StereoVSN

StereoVSN

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Nov 1, 2017
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Didn't the court order stipulate that they need to allow developer access until the actual lawsuit hits the court?

Edit: NVM, answer is above.
 
Zelda

Zelda

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Oct 25, 2017
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When you have more than a trillion dollars you can do whatever the hell you want.
 
wideface

wideface

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Talus

Talus

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Dec 9, 2017
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Maybe Apple is on some 4D chess shit... Epic broke Apple's rules, and Apple didn't like it... now Apple is going to break the courts rules and say.. "you see.. this is what they tried doing to us"

lol
 
LewieP

LewieP

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Oct 26, 2017
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Yeah so this is just the account related to Fortnite? The one that breached the contract? Not the other accounts?
 
Protome

Protome

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Oct 27, 2017
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Talus said:
Maybe Apple is on some 4D chess shit... Epic broke Apple's rules, and Apple didn't like it... now Apple is going to break the courts rules and say.. "you see.. this is what they tried doing to us"

lol
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They didn't break the courts rules. The court said they could do this.
 
thisismadness

thisismadness

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Oct 25, 2017
4,511
Talus said:
Maybe Apple is on some 4D chess shit... Epic broke Apple's rules, and Apple didn't like it... now Apple is going to break the courts rules and say.. "you see.. this is what they tried doing to us"

lol
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No, that isn't whats happening. Epic has two accounts. Epic games, where the games are published and Epic International, which publishes Unreal Engine. The judge gave Apple permission to kill the Epic Games account but not Epic International.
 
disparate

disparate

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Oct 25, 2017
8,381
Talus said:
Maybe Apple is on some 4D chess shit... Epic broke Apple's rules, and Apple didn't like it... now Apple is going to break the courts rules and say.. "you see.. this is what they tried doing to us"

lol
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The judge told Apple that they overreached with UE4 termination, not Epic's account on the app store itself.
 
MegaXZero

MegaXZero

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Talus said:
Maybe Apple is on some 4D chess shit... Epic broke Apple's rules, and Apple didn't like it... now Apple is going to break the courts rules and say.. "you see.. this is what they tried doing to us"

lol
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
There are two accounts, one for Epic games and another for unreal engine. The court order prevents the unreal engine one from being terminated. Apple wanted to terminate it cause they feel the company running it is a shell company for epic.
 
Protome

Protome

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Oct 27, 2017
15,874
For people that are confused, Epic have two Apple dev accounts. One for Unreal and one for their games. Apple shut down the Games one and the Court said Apple couldn't shut down the other one.

LewieP said:
Yeah so this is just the account related to Fortnite? The one that breached the contract? Not the other accounts?
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Yep.
 
AGN

AGN

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I have no sympathy for Epic. They clearly brought this on themselves.
 
Orb

Orb

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OP should clarify that this is only the developer accounts that were responsible for publishing Fortnite and a few other apps. Their developer account for the Unreal Engine itself and related tools is safe thanks to the temporary restraining order granted by the judge. Apple didn't violate that TRO or spring this on Epic, this is what we knew was going to happen based on the results of the initial hearing.
 
TripleBee

TripleBee

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Does this mean that fortnite will stop working completely on iOS ? Rather than just not being listed on the store.
 
MysticGon

MysticGon

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Oct 31, 2017
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Epic got what they deserved. Feel bad for the players though. Hope the cross save features helped preserve their progress.
 
Chopchop

Chopchop

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Oct 25, 2017
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It's so weird to watch these companies do this weird public pissing contest. If I'm understanding the events right, Epic seemed to think taking this whole thing viral with their playerbase could somehow bully Apple into bending the rules for them?
 

Deleted member 8852

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Oct 26, 2017
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Wow what a surprise, I don't know what Epic was expecting. They can lie to their playerbase all they want, neither apple nor the law cares.
 
Shadow

Shadow

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Oct 28, 2017
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I'm glad the Infinity Blade games are in my purchased section still. I know Epic removed those long ago, but I was still worried they'd be gone from purchased list.

Edit: scratch that. They show up but they're undownloadable. I don't think I have a backup :/
 
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