Epic Games says Apple terminated its developer account

“Fortnite” maker Epic Games said that, to the company’s suprise, Apple (AAPL) terminated the company’s developer account, and that Epic cannot devleop the Epic Games Store for iOS. “We recently announced that Apple approved our Epic Games Sweden AB developer account,” Epic Games said. “We intended to use that account to bring the Epic Games Store and Fortnite to iOS devices in Europe thanks to the Digital Markets Act (DMA). To our surprise, Apple has terminated that account and now we cannot develop the Epic Games Store for iOS. This is a serious violation of the DMA and shows Apple has no intention of allowing true competition on iOS devices… In terminating Epic’s developer account, Apple is taking out one of the largest potential competitors to the Apple App Store. They are undermining our ability to be a viable competitor and they are showing other developers what happens when you try to compete with Apple or are critical of their unfair practices. If Apple maintains its power to kick a third party marketplace off iOS at its sole discretion, no reasonable developer would be willing to utilize a third party app store, because they could be permanently separated from their audience at any time.” Investors in Epic Games include Tencent (TCEHY), KKR (KKR), Disney (DIS), and Sony (SONY).