Last week ended with Epic Games suing Apple over its "exclusive practices" in the iOS App Store, whereby Epic offered the option to purchase V-Bucks for Fortnite for iOS directly from the developer, thereby challenging Apple's policy regarding in-app purchases. s policy; Apple responded by removing Fortnite from the App Store, after which Epic quickly launched a PR campaign and filed suit.

Selling a fight is a dangerous thing to do, which brings us to today: Epic notified Apple that as a result of the violation of the Apple Developer Program License Agreement, all Epic developer accounts and access to iOS and Mac development tools would be terminated on August 28 Epic filed a motion for a temporary restraining order against Apple after notifying Apple that access to all Epic developer accounts and iOS and Mac development tools would be terminated on August 28, 2012 as a result of the violation of the Apple Developer Program License Agreement.

Epic states in its filing that it expects to prevail "in the merits of its claim" against Apple (and presumably Google as well), but that if Apple's actions continue, it will not be limited to Fortnite alone, which will suffer "irreparable harm" before that judgment is entered. The damage to Epic's ongoing business and to its customers' reputation and trust would be incalculable and irreparable.

The new lawsuit seeks an order preventing Apple from "removing, delisting, refusing to list, or otherwise making unavailable" Fortnite and Fortnite updates in the App Store (removing Epic's option to purchase V-Bucks directly not required), and prohibiting the removal of other Epic Games, Unreal Engine, and warning of dire consequences if the order is not granted. [Apple's retaliation is an existential threat to Epic's Unreal Engine. "OS providers like Apple routinely provide certain software and developer tools to software developers for free or for a small fee in order to enable the development of software that runs on their operating systems. Apple is trying to deny Epic access to such widely available material.

This seems to be the biggest problem for Epic at the moment. Losing these tools means that they will not be able to continue developing the Unreal Engine for iOS and Mac devices, and in turn, developers on these platforms will be forced to make not only video games, but also "many other areas" currently built on the Unreal Engine. This means that developers on these platforms may be forced to switch to other engines for all of their products, not just video games, but "many areas" that are currently built on the Unreal Engine.

"The impact on the viability of the Unreal Engine, and the trust and credibility that developers have in the Unreal Engine, cannot be repaired by a monetary award. This is the essence of irreparable harm."

Apple, on the other hand, would not suffer "irreparable harm" even if an injunction were ordered, the suit states. Because any harm Apple would suffer "could be remedied financially" if the injunction is later found to be unwarranted.

Epic founder Tim Sweeney reiterated in a declaration included in the lawsuit that losing access to Apple's developer program would have "devastating" consequences.

"Developers spend considerable time and resources on the use and development of games based on the Unreal Engine, and in many cases expect those games to be supported on Apple's platforms. This is especially true because the mobile game category is much larger than computing and console games, and mobile continues to have a high growth rate in the gaming industry,"

said Sweeney. [If Epic is unable to develop future updates to the Unreal Engine that support iOS and macOS, developers will no longer choose to use the Unreal Engine to develop games and other products for use on Apple devices. Therefore, the Unreal Engine's inability to support these critical platforms would irreparably harm Epic's product.

Despite these potentially very dire consequences, Sweeney is not yet ready to throw in the towel on the Goliath vs. Big Goliath battle.