Epic says Apple terminated its newly reinstated developer account over tweet

In the latest installment of Things No One Should Lose Sleep Over, Epic Games says Apple has taken down its newly reinstated developer account in the EU. In a blog post, Epic partly blames a tweet as Apple’s reason for doing so. Epic says this hinders its plans to launch a competing app marketplace in the EU.

Epic Games initially had its Apple Developer Account revoked after openly disregarding App Store policy to launch a legal campaign against Apple. That legal battle is getting messier by the hour.

However, Epic Games recently regained access to its primary developer account — at least for a few weeks. From Epic’s latest blog post today:

We recently announced that Apple approved our Epic Games Sweden AB developer account. We intended to use that account to bring the Epic Games Store and Fortnite to iOS devices in Europe thanks to the Digital Markets Act (DMA). To our surprise, Apple has terminated that account and now we cannot develop the Epic Games Store for iOS. This is a serious violation of the DMA and shows Apple has no intention of allowing true competition on iOS devices.

The Fortnite firm goes on to say that a tweet is partially to blame for this development:

Apple said one of the reasons they terminated our developer account only a few weeks after approving it was because we publicly criticized their proposed DMA compliance plan. Apple cited this X post from this thread written by Tim Sweeney. Apple is retaliating against Epic for speaking out against Apple’s unfair and illegal practices, just as they’ve done to other developers time and time again. 

This is the tweet in question:

Apple leadership faces some massive decisions in the coming weeks as the contradictions between their stated principles and the intended and actual consequences of their present policies are reckoned with: the app store monopoly, the digital goods payments monopoly, the tax, the… pic.twitter.com/mUxV5ypwcd

— Tim Sweeney (@TimSweeneyEpic) February 26, 2024

Epic also says that Apple has called them a “threat to their ecosystem,” but we’ll need to wait for Apple’s position to really know the details. In the meantime, try not to lose any sleep over the corporations battling, won’t ya?

And here’s the Apple statement:

“Epic’s egregious breach of its contractual obligations to Apple led courts to determine that Apple has the right to terminate ‘any or all of Epic Games’ wholly owned subsidiaries, affiliates, and/or other entities under Epic Games’ control at any time and at Apple’s sole discretion.’ In light of Epic’s past and ongoing behavior, Apple chose to exercise that right.”

In short, Apple is leaning on a court ruling from 2021 that upholds its ability to terminate developer accounts that violate its guidelines. That’s the legal basis for which Apple is relying upon globally — not just in the EU. More specifically in this situation, Apple has lost faith in Epic Games, such that even legal agreements aren’t enough to ensure Epic will not violate App Store policies.

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