When a billion dollar company weaponizes its fanbase to attack a trillion dollar company, its hard not to hyperfocus on every detail that falls out from it. I’ve tried my best not to let it dominate our news coverage — today, I made the exception. You’ll see why.
Writing this newsletter these past three days has been quite the learning experience for me. It has significantly lengthened my typical workflow, but it also has me more in tune with the details of each story. I look forward to continuing, and I hope it’s bringing you value!
Until tomorrow,
Adrian
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US Court saves Unreal Engine developers for now
For the past few weeks, Apple and Epic Games have been in an ongoing legal dispute over the 30% revenue share that Apple takes from every app on their mobile storefront. You may recall that this began with Epic intentionally subverting Apple’s terms of service by allowing an alternative purchasing option in the game Fortnite. Apple retaliated by not only removing Fortnite from the storefront, but also by blocking Epic’s access to the Apple Developer Program.
Today, the US District Court for the Northern District of California has ruled that Apple is not allowed to bring it to such an extreme. Blocking access to the Developer Program would include the Unreal Engine, which thousands of developers rely on to operate their apps.
“Apple has chosen to act severely, and by doing so, has impacted non-parties, and a third-party developer ecosystem. In this regard, the equities do weigh against Apple…Epic Games and Apple are at liberty to litigate against each other, but their dispute should not create havoc to bystanders.”
— Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers, US District Court Judge
While this may be a temporary victory for Epic, it is not an indication of the larger picture. The rest of this litigation, particularly the issue of the 30% cut, has been pushed down the pipeline. Rogers notes that both sides have flaws and merits in their arguments, and points out the marketing strategy by Epic should have no bearing on court proceedings.
The Sinking City pulled from storefronts following legal dispute
Continuing the legal-speak: developer Frogwares has released an open letter detailing the reasons for why 2019’s The Sinking City has been pulled from storefronts. In a nutshell, they were forced to terminate their contract with publisher Nacon (formerly Big Ben Interactive), because they broke a number of clauses in their contract.
Most notably, it appears as though Nacon has attempted to outright steal the Sinking City IP from Frogwares. They made demands that they were in no position to make, they claimed it as their IP when preparing to put the company on the stock market, and they even hid the Frogwares logo on the box art. Apparently they also owe them around €1 million.
The Sinking City is a Lovecraftian action-adventure game that came out in June of last year. If you would like to purchase it, you can either wait until it reappears on storefronts, or purchase it from Origin, the Nintendo eShop, or directly through their website.
Guild Wars 2 heading to Steam with both expansions
For the past eight years, ArenaNet have hosted their hit MMORPG Guild Wars 2 on their own — this November, the game heads to Steam for the first time. It will be bundled with the “Heart of Thorns” and “Path of Fire” expansions, and includes the full Living World adventure.
Existing GW2 accounts will not be able to transfer to Steam, and vice versa, so this move is largely to bring in new players. They have also announced that the third expansion for the game, “End of Dragons,” will be released some time next year.
Borderlands 3 fourth DLC arrives next month
Almost exactly one year following its initial release, Borderlands 3 will be getting its fourth (and assumed final) DLC. It’s called “Psycho Krieg and the Fantastic Fustercluck,” with it taking place in the literal mind of a psycho enemy. The trailer shows off its surrealist nature.
It will arrive as part of the season pass on September 10th, alongside a free level cap update.
Also In The News
More From TGO
Kieran has been sharing some pretty awesome screenshots in the #creativity channel of the Discord server. Photo editors in games are pretty cool, especially when you can pull out stuff like this:
If you don’t listen to the TGO Podcast, every single week Katosepe and I do a segment where we talk about the games we’ve been playing. As you know, I’m deep into the Xbox Game Pass ecosystem, and have extensively covered that in my content. Well, today I got called out on Twitter:
Get In Touch
That’s all for today folks! Thanks for being here, and please let me know if you have any suggestions for the newsletter :)
You can always message me simply by replying to this email, and I’ll do my best to get back to you.
You can also find me on Twitter, or join our Discord community.
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