A new week is here and the drama between these Fortnite and the iPhone maker still continues. Last week saw Epic Games fulfil its promise of a lawsuit against Apple. This was after the developer’s price possession, Fortnite was kicked out of the App Store after a disagreement on direct in-game payments. And while Google also followed suit by banning it from the Play Store, the anger is clearly directed more towards Apple.
According to Epic, Apple threatened to get rid of the Unreal Engine. As explained before, this is simply an open-source code that Epic gives to developers for building their own games.
Many have seen the lawsuit as an overreaction but it looks like Epic is now gaining an ally. Microsoft has filed a statement supporting Epic’s request to maintain the developer kit. The software giant reiterated with Epic that getting rid of Unreal Engine from App Store could be calamitous for developers.
“Apple’s discontinuation of Epic’s ability to develop and support Unreal Engine for iOS or macOS will harm game creators and gamers,” the statement reads partly. It is reasonable or Microsoft to do this considering its plans to venture more into mobile cloud gaming courtesy of Xbox.
Today we filed a statement in support of Epic's request to keep access to the Apple SDK for its Unreal Engine. Ensuring that Epic has access to the latest Apple technology is the right thing for gamer developers & gamers https://t.co/72bLdDkvUx
— Phil Spencer (@XboxP3) August 23, 2020
Apple, on the other hand, says it applies the rules equally and “won’t make an exception for Epic because we don’t think it’s right to put their business interests ahead of the guidelines that protect our customers”.
Amid all this, it is quite clear that Apple’s policies that were once considered the best are now being questioned by some parties.
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