What just happened? Epic Games has spent years fighting Apple for the right to distribute its software on iPhones without paying a 30 percent commission fee. Epic thought it had won a minor victory as Europe's Digital Markets Act goes into effect Thursday, but Apple has snatched it away, citing Epic's past behavior and comments.
Apple has terminated Epic Games Sweden's developer account, banning the company from releasing any iOS software on or off the Apple App Store. The decision comes mere weeks after Europe's new Digital Markets Act (DMA) pushed the Cupertino giant to let Epic start an alternate app store.
Epic and its hit game Fortnite were initially kicked off of the App Store in 2020 amid a legal battle with Apple over its policies, which lock downloads and payments to the iOS operator's backend while imposing a commission fee – usually 30 percent. The court's decision mostly favored Apple, and Fortnite remains playable on iOS only through browser-based cloud streaming.
However, the DMA forces Apple to allow sideloading, and Epic quickly announced plans to launch a third-party iOS app store through its Swedish subsidiary, which would signal Fortnite's return as a native app. Instead, Apple's termination of Epic's developer account has killed the effort before it could begin.
Epic responded by publishing a series of letters between it and Apple, in which the latter explains its reasoning. Cupertino cites Epic CEO Tim Sweeney's public criticism of Apple's DMA compliance measures and the prior court fight between the two companies, calling Epic "verifiably untrustworthy." The argument centers around Epic's deliberate defiance of the original iOS Terms of Service, which caused Fortnite's original ban.
Although Apple will begin allowing European companies to distribute iOS software outside the App Store, it still imposes tight restrictions on them and has introduced new fees – a strategy Sweeney labeled "Malicious Compliance." Spotify also blasted the measures, claiming that the fees amounted to extortion and indirectly maintain the status quo, where Apple retains ultimate control over what software is available on iOS.
Sweeney considers Epic's second ban illegal under the DMA, but it remains to be seen how the EU will respond. The action demonstrates that the law's current iteration can't stop Apple from unilaterally blocking developers and software from its devices.