Epic Games releases Fortnite on Google Play Store

Epic Games has decided to end its opposition to Fortnite being released on the Play Store. The company says it chooses eggs for its money and accuses Google of contributing to an unfavorable situation for downloadable software that is offered outside of Google Play.

Fortnite’s appearance on the Play Store marks a change of direction for Epic Games, eighteen months after the company released the Android mobile version of the game through its own website. In a statement that the company sent to Polygon, among others, it said it realized after 18 months that Google is lagging software that can be downloaded outside of Google Play due to technical and business measures. For example, Epic points to recurring security pop-ups with third-party downloads and that Google labels third-party software as malware. The developer also points to initiatives such as Google Play Protect, which Epic describes as an attempt to block software from outside the Google Play Store.

For these reasons, Epic Games says it has decided to release Fortnite for Android on the Google Play Store now. The Epic Games app and the Fortnite app will also still be offered outside of Google’s store. The iOS version of the game was already provided through Apple’s App Store, as users cannot install applications outside of this store. That means that Epic has been handing over a percentage of its revenue to Apple for some time. That will now also be the case with Google: for all in-app purchases, Epic Games must give up 30 percent. Google informed The Verge at the end of last year that it would not make an exception for Fortnite with regard to this policy.

Epic CEO Tim Sweeney spoke out against this practice as early as August 2018, when the company decided to ignore the Play Store and offer Fortnite via its own website through an APK. He thinks that percentage is disproportionately high if you consider the costs that the Play Store has to incur. That stance hasn’t changed, as Epic Games’ recent statement expresses hope that Google will change its policies and business practices in the near future to create a level playing field for developers.