{"id":29948,"date":"2020-08-28T16:54:07","date_gmt":"2020-08-28T20:54:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/?p=29948"},"modified":"2020-08-31T16:33:11","modified_gmt":"2020-08-31T20:33:11","slug":"apple-terminates-epic-games-developer-account","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2020\/08\/28\/apple-terminates-epic-games-developer-account\/","title":{"rendered":"Apple Terminates Epic Games&rsquo; Developer Account"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.macrumors.com\/2020\/08\/28\/apple-terminates-epic-games-developer-account\/\">Juli Clover<\/a> (<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/MacRumors\/status\/1299442911403151361\">tweet<\/a>):<\/p>\n<blockquote cite=\"https:\/\/www.macrumors.com\/2020\/08\/28\/apple-terminates-epic-games-developer-account\/\"><p>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.<\/p><p>[&#8230;]<\/p><p>Though the Epic Games developer account is no longer available, Fortnite continues to work.<\/p><\/blockquote><p>As expected. Apple also disabled IAP because customers were asking for refunds.<\/p>\n<blockquote cite=\"https:\/\/www.macrumors.com\/2020\/08\/28\/apple-terminates-epic-games-developer-account\/\"><p>Last night, Epic <a href=\"https:\/\/www.macrumors.com\/2020\/08\/28\/fortnite-emails-new-season-unavailable\/\">sent out emails<\/a> to Fortnite players blaming the unavailability of the new season on Apple and claming that Apple is &ldquo;blocking Fortnite&rdquo; in order to prevent Epic Games from &ldquo;passing on the savings from direct payments to players.&rdquo; Apple in turn has taken to featuring Fortnite competitor PUBG in its  App Store.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n<p>It appears that the Mac version of Fortnite is <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/lapcatsoftware\/status\/1299410165507264512\">signed by<\/a> the separate Epic International account that Epic uses for Unreal Engine.<\/p>\n\n<p>Previously:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2020\/08\/26\/epic-will-stop-updating-fortnite-for-ios-and-mac\/\">Epic Will Stop Updating Fortnite for iOS and Mac<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2020\/08\/25\/court-rules-on-epics-temporary-restraining-order\/\">Court Rules on Epic&rsquo;s Temporary Restraining Order<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n<p id=\"apple-terminates-epic-games-developer-account-update-2020-08-31\">Update (2020-08-31): <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/rjonesy\/status\/1299478224368545793\">Ryan Jones<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote cite=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/rjonesy\/status\/1299478224368545793\">\n<p>In dueling PR statements Apple sounds over dramatic, while Epic is chillin&rsquo;.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/TimSweeneyEpic\/status\/1299467198193373185\">Tim Sweeney<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote cite=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/TimSweeneyEpic\/status\/1299467198193373185\"><p>Apple&rsquo;s statement isn&rsquo;t forthright. They chose to terminate Epic&rsquo;s account; they didn&rsquo;t <em>have<\/em> to.<\/p><p>Apple suggests we spammed the App Store review process. That&rsquo;s not so. Epic submitted three Fortnite builds: two bug-fix updates, and the Season 4 update with this note.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/daringfireball.net\/linked\/2020\/08\/28\/apple-terminates-epic-games-account\">John Gruber<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote cite=\"https:\/\/daringfireball.net\/linked\/2020\/08\/28\/apple-terminates-epic-games-account\">\n<p>The last approved version of Fortnite still runs, but along with other games from Epic, it&rsquo;s no longer available from the App Store, even if you previously downloaded it. This means you won&rsquo;t be able to restore Fortnite on a new or factory-reset iPhone.<\/p>\n<p>[&#8230;]<\/p>\n<p>The &ldquo;instead they repeatedly submit Fortnite updates designed to violate the guidelines&rdquo; line in Apple&rsquo;s statement is interesting, though. I don&rsquo;t read it as an accusation of &ldquo;spamming&rdquo;, as Sweeney claims. Epic submitted three builds, none of which removed their in-app purchase circumvention, so they knew Apple was never going to approve them. They were just wasting Apple&rsquo;s time. But I find it interesting that Apple even mentioned it, or phrased it that way. It indicates that Epic has gotten under their skin to some degree.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n<p>But, presumably, under the <a href=\"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2020\/08\/31\/allowing-bug-fixes-and-challenging-the-guidelines\/\">new rules<\/a> announced today, the bug fixes would be allowed? Somehow I doubt that.<\/p>\n\n<p>See also: <a href=\"https:\/\/news.ycombinator.com\/item?id=24309632\">Hacker News<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/atp.fm\/393\">Accidental Tech Podcast<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/doctorow\/status\/1300096473585995776\">Cory Doctorow<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/tirania.org\/blog\/archive\/2020\/Aug-28.html\">Miguel de Icaza<\/a> (<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/migueldeicaza\/status\/1299395184329981953\">tweet<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/news.ycombinator.com\/item?id=24309390\">Hacker News<\/a>):<\/p>\n<blockquote cite=\"https:\/\/tirania.org\/blog\/archive\/2020\/Aug-28.html\">\n<p>In the end, I value my iOS devices because I know that I can trust them with my information because security is paramount to Apple.<\/p>\n<p>[&#8230;]<\/p>\n<p>In the battle over the security and privacy of my phone, I am happy to pay a premium knowing that my information is safe and sound, and that it is not going to be sold to the highest bidder.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>It&rsquo;s comforting to believe this, but it may be more <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/saurik\/status\/1295024419618697216\">marketing<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2019\/12\/30\/apples-filing-against-corellium-and-jailbreaking\/\">information<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2020\/07\/22\/apple-security-research-device-program\/\">hiding<\/a> than <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/saurik\/status\/1295024427768274944\">truth<\/a>. We know that information <a href=\"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2020\/08\/28\/governments-buying-phone-location-data\/\">is being sold<\/a> and that most of the actual security benefits are due to the <a href=\"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2020\/06\/22\/the-app-store-doesnt-make-apps-safe\/\">design of iOS<\/a> rather than the App Store itself.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Juli Clover (tweet): 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.[&#8230;]Though the Epic Games developer account is no longer available, Fortnite continues [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"apple_news_api_created_at":"2020-08-28T20:54:11Z","apple_news_api_id":"2852b0c3-5825-4af6-8cea-b796904e8103","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2020-08-31T20:33:15Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/AKFKww1glSvaM6reWkE6BAw","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[91,38,101,1969,1768,418,522,31,1667,26,1972],"class_list":["post-29948","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-technology","tag-appstore","tag-apple","tag-business","tag-epic","tag-fortnite","tag-game","tag-inapppurchase","tag-ios","tag-ios-13","tag-iosapp","tag-unreal-engine"],"apple_news_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29948","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29948"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29948\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29967,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29948\/revisions\/29967"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29948"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29948"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29948"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}