If you don’t know and have been living under a rock for the last two weeks, Epic Games and Apple are currently in a legal battle, the main focus-point is the 30 percent cut that Apple takes from every transaction. Epic Games and Apple's feud is escalating and has started to effect other parties. Epic Games recently filed a restraining order against the tech giant’s decision to remove Apple SDK support for Unreal Engine.
The feud between the two companies is not going to be resolved anytime soon. Even Microsoft, a direct competitor of Apple, filed a statement in support of Epic Games. Below is the tweet by Phil Spencer, who is the Executive Vice-President of Gaming at Microsoft and Head of Xbox.
Today we filed a statement in support of Epic's request to keep access to the Apple SDK for its Unreal Engine. Ensuring that Epic has access to the latest Apple technology is the right thing for gamer developers & gamers https://t.co/72bLdDkvUx
— Phil Spencer (@XboxP3) August 23, 2020
Microsoft's General Manager of Gaming Developer Experiences, Kevin Gammill, also weighed in. “Denying Epic access to Apple’s SDK and other development tools will prevent Epic from supporting Unreal Engine on iOS and macOS, and will place Unreal Engine and those game creators that have built, are building, and may build games on it at a substantial disadvantage,” he said.
Gammill also explained that Apple's decision to end support for Unreal Engine will be devastating for several game developers, as changing a game engine mid-development is a costly affair. This will affect both small indie developers and big ones like Microsoft as well.
“Developing a game using different game engines for different platforms may be prohibitively expensive and difficult. In any event, it is not as cost-effective as using a game engine that supports different platforms.” Gammill said in his support statement. “As a result, game creators, including Microsoft, that are preparing to develop a game targeted at multiple platforms generally choose game engines based both on the functionality they provide as well as their ability to support development for those platforms.”
So what do you think? Which side do you think is going to win? Do you think Epic Games is in the right here or is it Apple? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below.
