Epic Games has finally made its battle royale hit, Fortnite available on Google Play Store for Android. This comes 18 months after launching the game as a third-party software.
This meant players who wanted to download Fortnite had to get it outside Google’s official mobile app store.
Although Epic says it’s doing this because Google places third-party software download on Android at a disadvantage by warning users of potential security issues that may be non-existent.
Meaning that; any software not issued via its official the Play Store is characterised as possible malware. Epic accuses Google of using measures like “scary, repetitive security pop-ups” to scare Android users about third-party software.
In its press statement, Epic Games said:
“After 18 months of operating Fortnite on Android outside of the Google Play Store, we’ve come to a basic realization. Google puts software downloadable outside of Google Play at a disadvantage, through technical and business measures such as scary, repetitive security pop-ups for downloaded and updated software, restrictive manufacturer and carrier agreements and dealings, Google public relations characterizing third-party software sources as malware, and new efforts such as Google Play Protect to outright block software obtained outside the Google Play store.”
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Now, Epic will have to pay Google a 30% cut on all in-app purchases that the Play Store mandates. Epic CEO Tim Sweeney had been a vocal critic of the cut, accusing both Apple’s App Store and Google’s Play Store of abusing their market positions to charge developers exorbitantly.
“The 30 percent store tax is a high cost in a world where game developers’ 70 percent must cover all the cost of developing, operating, and supporting their games,” Sweeney had said in August 2018.
The CEO also called the fee “illegal” for platforms that have more than 50% share in their markets. But the good news is that you can now download Fortnite from Google Play store.
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