Unreal Engine Can't be Taken Down by Apple

A little while back, Epic Games suffered a blow in the preliminary phase of their court battle against Apple, when a judge said they weren't entirely convinced by Epic's claims that Apple was a heartless monopoly that steals money and terrorizes the good little boys and girls on Christmas night. However, this was far from an actual ruling, and now, Epic Games has won half an actual victory... although it's still far from having claimed a real win in court.

See, early in the little kerfuffle between these two multi-billion dollar companies, Apple decided to make an example of Epic Games: not only did they take down Fortnite, the offending app, they completely canceled Epic Game's developer account and removed Unreal Engine, which would have screwed over dozens of other developers, not just Epic Games. Epic Games requested some "extraordinary relief," asking the judge to force Apple to keep Fortnite and the Unreal Engine on their storefront until the court issue was resolved.

Earlier, the judge said they were unimpressed with many of Epic Game's claims, and that was reflected in this most recent ruling: the judge was more than happy to let Apple ban Fortnite from their app store.
 

"In short,Epic Games cannot simply exclaim 'monopoly' to rewrite agreements giving itself unilateral benefit. Its other identified bases: damage to its reputation and the Fortnite gaming community cannot constitute irreparable harm where such harm flows from Epic Games' own actions and its strategic decision to breach its agreements with Apple."

However, the judge did throw Epic Games a bone, and has officially forced Apple to re-instate the Unreal Engine, as this removal struck it as entirely retaliatory. Apple insisted that this is business as usual for them, but it doesn't change the ruling. For the time being, Epic Game's iconic engine, and the people who use them, are safe.

It'll be later next year before we find out Fortnite's fate. That's a long time with no mobile Fortnite revenue.