In a passive-aggressive tweet, the CEO of Epic, the company behind Fortnite, praised the competing game PUBG Mobile. This is likely another cheeky jab at Apple, which is still in dispute with Epic over the distribution of Fortnite on iOS.
What was said? Tim Sweeney is the CEO of Epic Games, the company behind Fortnite. Games like PUBG are therefore competitors. Nevertheless, Sweeney recently wrote on Twitter:
“While we wait for Fortnite to be freed on iOS and Mac, you have another great battle royale game with Unreal Engine here!”
Tim Sweeney
Attached was indeed a link to PUBG Mobile in the iOS App Store. But why is the CEO behind Fortnite promoting a competing game that, while not as successful as Fortnite, still manages to attract quite a few users to mobile devices?
Epic’s Unreal Engine is essential for many games
What PUBG Mobile has to do with Epic: The reason for the passive-aggressive praise from the CEO is likely that PUBG – like many other games – was developed with the Unreal Engine. This engine is made by Epic, and there are regular updates and adjustments made to the engine.
Apple, on the other hand, once threatened at the beginning of the Fortnite iOS crisis to remove Epic’s access to the developer tools on iOS. Sweeney likely wants to point out with his tweet that this would harm not only Fortnite but also all games using the Unreal Engine.
Without developer tools, supporting the engine and the games based on it would be very difficult, and many studios would get into serious trouble.
Apple surely has known this for a long time, but with his tweet, Sweeney further fuels the ongoing PR battle against Apple. Epic makes headlines almost weekly, with the latest being when they silently brought a skin as the last update to the iOS Fortnite, which literally “mocked” Apple’s CEO.
