Enlarge / A Fortnite loading screen displayed on an iPhone in 2018, when Apple and Epic weren't at each other's throats. (credit: Andrew Harrer | Bloomberg | Getty Images )

Last month, Epic announced that Apple had approved an iOS developer account for Epic Games Sweden, thus securing a path for Fortnite to return to the iOS App Store for the first time since 2020 (in Europe, at least). But Apple has now terminated that Swedish developer account in a move Epic says is a "serious violation of the DMA [that] shows Apple has no intention of allowing true competition on iOS devices."

No competing App Store for you

Epic is referring there to the Digital Markets Act , the European regulation that has forced Apple to officially allow sideloaded apps on European iOS devices for the first time. Since Apple announced its DMA compliance plans in January, though, many third-party developers have loudly complained about the stringent terms Apple is imposing on companies that want to establish alternative App Stores on iOS devices. Epic Games was among those public complainants, with CEO Tim Sweeney publicly calling Apple's policies "a devious new instance of Malicious Compliance" full of "hot garbage."

Epic said Apple denied its request for a DMA consultation that could have helped streamline its plans to return to iOS. Despite this, in February, Epic signaled a willingness to jump through Apple's hoops, using a newly approved developer account for Epic Games Sweden AB as a way to "start developing the Epic Games Store on iOS soon" ahead of a planned 2024 launch.

Enlarge / What is this, some sort of "meta universe" or something? (credit: Disney / Epic)

Entertainment conglomerate Disney has announced plans to invest $1.5 billion for an "equity stake" in gaming conglomerate Epic Games. The financial partnership will also see both companies "collaborate on an all-new games and entertainment universe that will further expand the reach of beloved Disney stories and experiences," according to a press release issued late Wednesday .

A short teaser trailer announcing the partnership promises that "a new Universe will emerge," allowing players to "play, watch, create, [and] shop" while "discover[ing] a place where magic is Epic."

In announcing the partnership, Disney stressed its long-standing use of Epic's Unreal Engine in projects ranging from cinematic editing to theme park experiences like Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge. Disney's new gaming universe will also be powered by the Unreal Engine, the company said.

Enlarge / Artist's conception of Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney jumping for joy at news of the verdict. (credit: Epic Games)

While Epic's antitrust arguments against Google had many similarities to those in the company's earlier case against Apple , the verdicts could not have been more different. A federal jury took only a few hours of deliberation Monday afternoon to determine that Google had an illegal monopoly in the markets for Android app distribution and in-app billing services.

The jury unanimously answered "yes" to all 11 questions on the verdict form , indicating that Epic had proven those monopolies existed in every worldwide market except for China. Google "engaged in anticompetitive conduct" to establish or maintain the monopoly and illegally tied the Google Play store to the use of Google Play billing, according to the verdict. The jury also agreed with Epic's arguments that programs like "Project Hug" and agreements signed with Android phone OEMs represented an "unreasonable restraint on trade," harming Epic in the process.

With the verdict set, U.S. District Judge James Donato will hold hearings next month to determine the best way to remedy Google's anticompetitive monopoly power. During the trial, Epic did not ask for monetary damages, but did ask that it and other developers be able to introduce their own Android app stores and use their own billing systems on Android devices "without restriction."

Enlarge / How's about we just forget about those plans for a competing Android app store? (credit: Getty Images | krisanapong detraphiphat )

For years now, Google has stressed the "open" nature of the Android's sideloading-enabled mobile platform over Apple's completely locked-down iOS App Store. But Epic has used the opening days of its jury trial against Google to argue that this technical openness hasn't prevented Google from creating an effective monopoly over Android app distribution through its Google Play Store.

In its opening statement (as reported by multiple sources inside the San Francisco federal courtroom), Epic attorney Gary Bornstein pointed out that the Google Play Store is responsible for 90 percent of all Android app downloads, resulting in $12 billion in profit for Google. And Epic argues that Google has maintained that dominance through a "bribe and block" strategy that "pays actual and potential competitors not to compete—literally gives them money and other things of value."

Epic's opening arguments specifically called out League of Legends maker Riot Games as one of the companies that Google paid to eliminate the possible launch of a competing Android app store. While Epic says Google was smart enough not to note this payment in written contractual language, a less formal system helped ensure Riot was one of many companies that would "sit this one out and let [Google] win."

Enlarge / Hopefully the use of Unreal will help prevent major glitches like this, which showed up in the console edition of Cyberpunk 2077 around its 2020 launch. (credit: CDPR / @MrDelabee Twitter )

Developer CD Projekt Red has confirmed that there will be no more DLC content made for 2020's Cyberpunk 2077 after this month's release of "Phantom Liberty." But that decision is being driven less by analysis of player interest or sales potential and more by behind-the-scenes changes in the studio's development pipeline.

“It’s a technological decision to be honest,” CDPR Senior VP of Business Development Michal Nowakowski said in a recent Q&A session (as transcribed by Video Games Chronicle ). "This is the last time we’re working on the Red Engine for the time being at least, and in the foreseeable future as you know we are working on the Unreal Engine from Epic. This was one of the key reasons why we decided this was the only one."

"This is the only expansion of the game, and it has nothing to do with the numbers and how satisfied or not we are with sales or anything of the kind," Nowakowski added.

Enlarge / Would you believe that creating this performance took only minutes of video processing and no human tweaking? (credit: Ninja Theory / Epic )

SAN FRANCISCO—Every year at the Game Developers Conference, a handful of competing companies show off their latest motion-capture technology, which transforms human performances into 3D animations that can be used on in-game models. Usually, these technical demonstrations involve a lot of specialized hardware for the performance capture and a good deal of computer processing and manual artist tweaking to get the resulting data into a game-ready state.

Epic's upcoming MetaHuman facial animation tool looks set to revolutionize that kind of labor- and time-intensive workflow. In an impressive demonstration at Wednesday's State of Unreal stage presentation , Epic showed off the new machine-learning-powered system, which needed just a few minutes to generate impressively real, uncanny-valley-leaping facial animation from a simple head-on video taken on an iPhone.

The potential to get quick, high-end results from that kind of basic input "has literally changed how [testers] work or the kind of work they can take on," Epic VP of Digital Humans Technology Vladimir Mastilovic said in a panel discussion Wednesday afternoon.

Enlarge / Epic Games Store Epic Games Store Epic Games Store Epic Games Store Epic Games Store Epic Games Store... (credit: Epic)

Epic has just made it much easier for small and individual developers to get their titles on the Epic Games Store. The company's self-publishing tools, which came out of closed beta Thursday , allow any developer to submit their game to Epic's platform for a $100-per-game fee.

Since its late-2018 launch with a small, curated selection of games , the Epic Games Store has slowly expanded to include nearly 2,000 titles . But those games have been selected by Epic for inclusion based on a "high quality standard," as Epic's Tim Sweeney put it to Ars in 2019 , leading to the publication of a number of "how to get published on the Epic Games Store" tutorials.

"We're not going to be that sort of venue [that accepts everything] because we don't think we can help those games to reach users," Sweeney told Ars in 2019. "So it's going to be driven by quality."