Apple struggles with Epic Games upgrade: will affect hundreds of other games

If the battle between the two companies continues, it could have an impact on hundreds of other games, epic said in a legal document on Monday. Epic will < / P > < p > if Apple closes epic’s developer account, epic will not be able to maintain its unreal engine for iPhone and apple PC users. Virtual engine is a set of 3D graphics display technology with a long history. In addition to epic itself, other game developers can get licenses from epic, so they don’t have to rebuild the same functionality from scratch. Virtual engine is used in many popular games. Compared with mobile games, it is more popular on game console and PC. < / P > < p > on Friday, the dispute between epic and apple officially began. At that time, epic updated fortress night. In the latest version of the game, users can directly use credit cards to purchase digital character equipment and other virtual goods, thus bypassing Apple’s in app payment. Apple said that epic’s move violated the app store policy, so it pulled “Fortress night” from its app store a few hours later. But epic was obviously prepared for this, and they immediately filed a lawsuit against apple, claiming that the action violated competition law. Apple’s app store, which has been vetted by Congress, is the only way for iPhone and iPad users to access apps. After that, epic launched a marketing campaign with a 30 second ad to encourage fortress night players to fight back at Apple. On Monday, epic said Apple threatened not only to delete fortress night, but also to completely disable epic’s developer accounts. Epic said this would make the virtual engine a zombie technology on iPhones and Macs, and the company would not be able to maintain it. “When Apple closes epic’s developer account, it will have devastating consequences,” said Tim Sweeney, chief executive of epic, in a document on Monday. Without access to these SDKs, APIs, and other tools, epic will not be able to continue to update the virtual engine for IOS and MacOS in the future, and will be forced to stop the virtual engine on IOS and MacOS. ” < / P > < p > and the dispute between apple and epic will affect not only the game fortress night, but also other games that use the virtual engine. For those third-party game developers who use the virtual engine, this is obviously hard to accept. < p > < p > the virtual engine has been around for about 20 years. It comes from the back-end technology that epic built for a popular game in 1998. When someone wants to develop a new game, they can create their own code to simulate 3D graphics, or they can use software such as the virtual engine, which also allows the same game to run on multiple platforms, such as supporting Sony Playstation and windows devices. Now even big companies like Nintendo are using virtual engines to make switch games. < p > < p > the virtual engine has undergone four major version updates, and can be used on almost all major computing platforms. Even if you’re not a fortress night player, you’ve probably used epic’s technology, because many famous games use the virtual engine. Epic said the virtual engine could also be used in other areas outside the game, such as medical software developers using it to develop training applications, and Hollywood studios using it to create virtual backgrounds and environments. < / P > < p > if game developers want to use this technology, they need to pay epic a 5% share when the game gets more than $1 million in revenue, or negotiate a one-time payment agreement with epic. Epic is a private company, so it doesn’t disclose how much revenue virtual engine technology can bring them each year. Last month, epic completed a round of financing involving Sony, Baillie Gifford, fidelity and Lightspeed. After this round of financing, epic’s post transaction valuation reached $17.3 billion. Investors believe that the universality and future potential of the virtual engine is one of the important reasons for the company’s high valuation. < / P > < p > epic said that if their developer accounts are disabled, they will not be able to continue to update the virtual engine on IOS and MAC platforms. This means that many game developers will not be able to use the virtual engine, which will make it more difficult to develop games for iPhones and Macs. “By the spring of 2021, apple is likely to refuse to accept all new apps and updates to existing apps that use the unreal engine because epic has no access to these tools,” epic said in a filing submitted on Monday This will lead to a large number of game developers looking for other cross platform tools to support making their games run on Apple devices, epic said. < / P > < p > although the loop engine is very popular on game consoles and PCs, many mobile games use the engine of unity, a competitor of epic. “The unreal engine is used by some mobile games, but these games are only a small part, unity is more popular,” said Michael pacer, an analyst at Wade bush < / P > < p > Apple has not responded to epic’s latest submission. An apple spokesman just restated last week’s statement: “epic has added a feature to its app that has not been reviewed and approved by apple. The purpose of doing so is to violate the app store’s in app payment rules, which apply to all sales of digital goods or services and all developers.”