Some apples are sweet, some not so much. Apple reversed its ban on Epic Games’ developer account on Friday afternoon, according to an updated blog post, clearing a path again for an Epic Games Store on iOS devices in Europe. The decision comes just two days after Apple terminated Epic’s account over some tweets from CEO Tim Sweeney.
“The DMA went through its first major challenge with Apple banning Epic Games Sweden from competing with the App Store, and the DMA just had its first major victory,” said Sweeney, still tweeting, on Friday. He concluded “#FreeFortnite!”
After news broke that Apple had banned Epic Games on Thursday, European Commissioner Thierry Bratton tweeted, “There is no room for threats by gatekeepers to silence developers.”
Europe just launched new laws under the Digital Markets Act, which aims to limit the power of big tech corporations like Apple and Google. Apple’s move to ban the creators of the #1 desktop video game in the world was an immediate red flag.
Apple confirmed in a statement to Gizmodo that Epic has been reinstated as a developer after the video game developer “committed to follow the rules.” That’s originally what Apple claimed as the reason for banning the Fortnite maker. However, it seems more likely that Apple had enough of Sweeney’s constant bashing of the Cupertino giant.
To be clear, what caused this ban was a tweet from Sweeney where he called Apple’s values into question. He posted a picture of Apple founders Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak and asked current management to act more like the company used to be. Apple cited this tweet in its termination of Epic.
Tim Sweeney’s loud mouth may have saved him in this fight. On top of the picture of Apple’s founders, Sweeney recently called Apple’s practices “hot garbage” and a “horror show.” Apple had enough of his talking, so they decided to ban Epic’s account, calling them “verifiably untrustworthy.” But Epic Games triumphed by calling international attention to their terminated developer account, allowing the Fortnite maker to ultimately get its way.
Sweeney has certainly done a good job of attracting attention to the iOS App Store as a monopoly. In the last few years, Epic has positioned itself as the David fighting the Goliaths of Big Tech – Apple and Google. Epic has fought legal battles around the world to free itself from legacy app stores. Now, Epic Games is getting a chance to run its own marketplace around Fortnite and other games. The lesson here seems to be: keep on tweeting Sweeney.
