Epic games were dealt a blow when Apple terminated their developers’ account on Wednesday. The reason is that Epic Games’ CEO statements on X were too much for Apple’s liking. Epic Games’ latest tweet after the termination was: “Apple is retaliating against Epic for exposing Apple’s unfair and illegal practices, just as they did to other developers on time and again.”
Apple also did not hide the fact that Sweeney’s blatant criticism was a tad bit too much for the tech giants to tolerate. The tweet in question was, “the company to make visionary decisions to become the company it says it is, a “beloved brand of consumers, a partner of developers, and dominating none.” Sweeney criticized Apple’s hold over app stores, digital payments and browsers. To top it off, the Epic CEO posted a photo of Apple founders Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak working on an early personal computer to end the tweet.
Apple and Epic had been exchanging blows in the legal ring for quite some time now. In the end, European regulators gave a result that favored the Fortnite developers in the shape of the Digital Markets Act, which comes into effect this week. This was a significant step in their pursuit of developing a gaming store on iOS devices to rival the Apple store. However, all that now hangs in balance becaue Epic’s CEO made a tweet that didn’t go down well at the Apple HQ.
Apple sent a letter to Epic on 2nd March 24 raising its concerns. Apple stated that Epic is “clearly untrustworthy” and is concerned that Epic “does not intend to honor its contractual commitments to Apple.” Epic made the letter public.
Apple, in a statement given to Gizmodo stated that, “a US court has given it the right to terminate Epic Games, or any of its subsidiaries, at any time.” This was because Epic has been guilty of, “Blatant violation of its contractual obligations.” Surprisingly, though, Sweeney testified that his company intentionally violated its developer program agreement with Apple to make its point. Now, it all has come down to the point where Apple wants Epic to prove its trustworthiness again so that they can move forward with their plans.