Microsoft favors Epic Games in lawsuit against Apple

Microsoft has spoken out in favor of Epic Games, amid the lawsuit that the game developer is holding against Apple. Epic intentionally violated Apple’s mobile app store policies, which forced the latter to ban Fortnite from iOS.

However, Apple can permanently prevent Epic Games from having access to its software development platforms, which would end iOS support for the Unreal Engine SDK, Epic’s game development platform.

iOS may end support for the Unreal Engine SDK.Source: Epic Games

What does Microsoft have to do with this?

The problem is that Unreal Engine is an SDK used by several partner companies, in addition to independent developers, for creating games.

Microsoft issued a statement in court, explaining that if iOS has support for Unreal Engine terminated, several game developers will be harmed, and especially smaller developers, who use the Epic SDK because they are unable to develop its own SDK. Thus, an entire ecosystem of games already launched, in addition to those still in development and those with pending contracts, would be threatened.

Microsoft itself maintains a multi-year contract with Epic Games to implement Unreal Engine support on its devices and on third-party devices. An example of this partnership is the racing game “Forza Street”, currently available for iOS, and which was developed based on the Unreal Engine.

Epic Games wanted to take the case to the courts

By offering an in-house purchase of discounted items in Fortnite, Epic intentionally violated the App Store policies, as these sales did not pass the 30% fee charged by the Apple platform.

The company’s goal was to bring the case to justice, as it and many other developers do not agree with the fee, or at least try to negotiate a lower percentage.

Microsoft favors Epic Games in lawsuit against Apple via TecMundo