Epic vs. Apple: The saga continues at GDC

During GDC 2023, Epic Games has once again charged against Apple. During the State of Unreal conference, Epic presented its vision of a more open and connected metaverse -something that already existed, even if it wasn’t called that-, but didn’t miss the opportunity to criticize the apple company, accusing it of trying to control and limit innovation in the world of video games.

It is clear that the fact that the court gave almost all the reason to Apple after Epic’s lawsuit did not sit well with its head. Although the truth is that he has not missed the opportunity to criticize other players in the industry.

One criticism after another

During the conference, Tim Sweeney, CEO of Epic Games, focused on presenting the latest developments in the economy around its Unreal editor for Fortnite, as well as its new animation tool Metahumans and its marketplace Fab. As GamesIndustry reports, Sweeney also took the opportunity to reiterate his stance on the importance of creating an open metaverse accessible to all, without the intervention of large corporations.

However, these words were followed by harsh criticism of Apple. According to Sweeney, the Cupertino company is trying to monopolize the market and limit innovation in the world of video games. He claimed that Apple might try to “crush the metaverse” or “extract all the profits from it” and that the company would not allow developers to use its own engines.

Funny thing is, Sweeney seems to forget that Apple has allowed the use of third-party game engines on its platform for many years now. Unity and Unreal Engine – the latter from Epic – two of the most popular game engines, are available on the App Store. Developers use these engines to create many of the iOS and macOS games we may be playing right now.

On the other hand, Apple must ensure that the apps distributed in its own store meet certain security and quality requirements. Apple has implemented measures to ensure that developers can create high quality apps, and has established clear rules about the content allowed in its App Store. Some of these rules have been controversial and some have changed, but overall, they have helped maintain the integrity of the platform.

Epic Games should probably focus on developing its vision of a more open and accessible metaverse for all, rather than criticizing other companies without at least proposing improvements. Especially without losing sight of what conditions Epic itself applies to third-party games in its own store.

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