Epic Games Apple Battle, Command and Conquer’s Future

Epic expands lawsuit against Apple

Apple has responded to Epic’s breach of App Store terms of service and their subsequent anti-Apple PR campaign by announcing that Apple will revoke Epic’s development licenses and accounts on August 28th.

Epic introduced measures for circumventing Apple and Google’s cut of in-game purchases, and in response both Apple and Google removed Fortnite from their stores.

Apple has now gone one step further, by essentially threatening to block all of Epic’s products including the Unreal Engine from their platforms. Epic has responded by widening the scope of their lawsuit against Apple, asking the courts to stop this “act of retaliation.”

• Epic will be losing revenue from iOS, but Apple’s move also hurts developers who sell Unreal Engine games on Apple platforms
• Epic has deep pockets and is backed by Chinese tech giant Tencent, but Apple literally has the highest market capitalization in the world
• Should Epic win the lawsuits against Google and Apple, the way apps are distributed on their platforms could change forever

God-like: Apple’s rather drastic measures against Epic has surprised some, while others suspect this might have been Epic’s plan all along in an attempt to goad Apple into demonstrating anti-consumer behaviour. Expect the battle between these companies to intensify as Apple’s deadline draws closer.

Which performer filed a lawsuit against Epic over Fortnite’s “Fresh” dance?

• Russell Horning
• BlocBoy JB
• Donald Faison
• Alfonso Ribeiro

The answer will be revealed at the bottom of today’s issue. Join up with our community on Twitter and Facebook to discuss what the answer could be.

Real-time strategy has sandy roots

Command & Conquer is one of the foundational works of the real-time strategy genre, building on the success of Dune II: The Building of a Dynasty.

Westwood invented the Command & Conquer universe because the team was “tired of sand” and wanted a break from the Dune license. The series continued for almost 20 years, spanning over a dozen games spanning multiple genres.

The series was shelved in 2013 when Command & Conquer: Generals 2 was cancelled in 2013, but has seen a slow resurgence since 2018 with the release of Command & Conquer: Rivals and the recent Command & Conquer: Remastered Collection. Could the time be right for a comeback?

Join up with our community on Twitter and Facebook to discuss today’s fact.

The fate of Command & Conquer depends on Age of Empires 4

Following the success of Command & Conquer Remastered Collection, real-time strategy fans might be forgiven for hoping that the genre will see a resurgence.

According to Jim Vessella, producer on Command & Conquer Remastered Collection, it will take more than one nostalgia-fuelled success to bring real-time strategy back to the blockbuster status enjoyed in the 90s.

”Relic is developing Age of Empires 4 in conjunction with Microsoft,” said Vessella. “And that is one of those projects – big investment, a really veteran team, a big legacy franchise – and I’m really curious to see how it does. If it does really well, then that’s a really strong data point for the genre. And that will allow us to look at the genre and how it’s doing. Or vice versa. So I’m rooting for that team!”

• Vessella wants to do more with Command & Conquer, but hasn’t started work on any new projects with EA
• Command & Conquer Remastered Collection has exceeded the developers’ expectations both in terms of sales and critical acclaim

Can haz remasters? Unsurprisingly, fans as well as press have been clamoring for more remasters: “We’ve seen several journalists as well as part of their reviews, or other articles, say, ‘okay, Red Alert 2 next, right?’ Obviously we love to hear that. We love to hear people want to see more of this kind of remaster path we’ve gone down. But we’re focused on the support for the first remaster collection,” said Vessella.

Fall Guys starts a Twitter bidding war

The genius(es?) in charge of the Fall Guys Twitter account have started a bidding war for the game’s next skin, encouraging companies to make their bids by donating money to the non-profit UK charity SpecialEffect.

Big brands were already eager to associate themselves with the surprise hit, including KFC Gaming, G Fuel and Chuck E. Cheese – and now it’s time for them to put their money where their mouths are.

• The bidding war will last for the next two weeks
• Companies are not obligated to honor their pledges unless they win the bid

Charitable bidders: So far a diverse mix of companies ranging from the Warframe developers to a bidet company have put in bids, but the current leader is YouTuber Mr. Beast’s $100,000 bid. That’s pretty hard to beat, but someone with deep pockets will probably settle the matter soon enough.

Dreamscaper Steam Codes

You have a chance to nab a Steam code for Dreamscaper if you refer DailyBits to a friend! Use our widget to start earning referrals, which you can build up throughout the year to increase your chance of being selected.

Dreamscaper is releasing today on Steam for $13.99 or £10.86, and we’ve got some codes to hand out this week, with the giveaway ending this Friday.

Dreamscaper is an ARPG Roguelite blending elements from brawlers, top-down shooters, and dungeon crawlers. Every slumber is a different dungeon in an ever-changing world with a multitude of unique events and challenges. Play as Cassidy, dive into her subconscious and take on the surreal nightmares she wrestles with in order to save her from a dark fate

• Co-op multiplayer mode for Ghost of Tsushima supporting 2-4 players coming later this year. Check out the Legends mode trailer and read the blog post to learn more
• George Orwell’s Animal Farm is being adapted into an adventure game by The Dairymen and Nerial, who just dropped an announcement trailer showing off the unique art-style
• Engine Software are not porting Killer 7 to Switch after all. SUDA51 had plans to bring Killer 7 to Switch, but ultimately decided against it
• Firewatch is being adapted into a film according to Hollywood Reporter. Snoot Entertainment, the studio behind Blindspotting and Little Monsters, are partnering with Campo Santos
• Elite Dangerous’ latest developer diary focuses on Odyssey expansion, scheduled for next year. Check out the dev diary to learn more about the development and see some pre-alpha gameplay

Which performer filed a lawsuit against Epic over Fortnite’s “Fresh” dance?

Answer: Alfonso Ribeiro!

Fortnite’s got some moves, but they were mostly stolen from other dancers.

Plenty of the dance moves in Fortnite are inspired by actors, rappers and dancers – most notably the “Fresh” emote inspired by Alfonso Ribeiro from Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. He took legal action in 2018, claiming that he and other performers deserve royalties from microtransaction sales of dance moves inspired and made famous by their work.

Epic’s response is simply that dance moves can not be copyrighted as per the United States Copyright Office regulations. No matter what you think about the claims or the response, it’s weird that anyone can capitalize on your smooth moves if they just happen to be more famous and unscrupulous than you.

Today’s issue of DailyBits was written by Gavin Herman, Erlend Grefsrud, Christian Vaz, Ken McKown, and Jamie Davey.