Epic confirms Fortnite will not be available on the Google Playstore

[NinerL]

Epic Games CEO cites ‘economic efficiency’ of bypassing Play Store’s 30 percent cut

Epic Games announced today that it will not distribute its massively popular game Fortnite on Android through Google’s Play Store marketplace. Instead, the company plans to directly distribute the software to players through the official Fortnite website, where Android users can download a Fortnite Installer program to install the game on compatible devices. The news confirms reports from earlier this week that Epic would bypass Google for the Android launch of the game.

EPIC WOULD RATHER NOT GIVE GOOGLE 30 OF EVERY IN-APP PURCHASE

 

 

 

The second reason is financial: Epic does not want to pay Google’s 30 percent cut, especially considering the entire game is funded through in-app purchases. “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 says. “There’s a rationale for this on console where there’s enormous investment in hardware, often sold below cost, and marketing campaigns in broad partnership with publishers.”

But on mobile platforms that are open, like Android, “30 percent is disproportionate to the cost of the services these stores perform, such as payment processing, download bandwidth, and customer service,” he says. Sweeney adds that Epic is “intimately familiar with these costs” from its direct distribution of Fortnite on Mac and PC.

Fortnite on iOS made $15 million in its first three weeks on the market, so it’s reasonable to assume the mobile version of the game is a sizable source of revenue for Epic. Last month, the company also reduced the revenue cut it takes from developers who use its Unreal Engine software, in part because of the ongoing financial success of Fortnite.

 

 

source: https://www.theverge.com/platform/amp/2018/8/3/17645982/epic-games-fortnite-android-version-bypass-google-play-store

 

thoughts: I think it's stupid not to put it on the playstore, this move will certainty cause confusion for their users, I can already see kids downloading malware/rats/keyloggers.

[GoodBytes]

This entry does not meet the posting guidelines of the Tech News section

• Plagiarism
• No quotes
• No explanation of the news

Thread has been moved out of the Tech News section until fixed (assuming someone else doesn't post properly instead until then, so fix quickly)

[AskTJ]

Only a 70% cut? They get like a mil or two each day. Might as well have some kind of money than no money. 

 

smh

[NinerL]

I'm on my phone right now, if someone wants make a thread in tech news.

[TAHIRMIA]

Kind of stupid for inexperienced users not everyone is going to know how to install an APK, 

[Rupe]

30% is a large cut so I can see the temptation of not going with the playstore, and in a way it's good they are not just blindly accepting it. Given the popularity of Fornite this will be a big monetary loss for Google, even if they were only to take say 10%. 

On the other hand, it is frustrating as it is the most convenient way of downloading apps and I share the concerns that younger more naive audiences might download what they think is Fornite but is in fact malware.

[Droidbot]

Yeah - this is poor judgement.

 

You're gonna 100% end up with idiots installing fucking malware disguised as Fortnite - and risking the security of your users over <1/3 of your already high revenue being cut?

 

I knew Epic Games were fucking retarded but not this fucking retarded

[Combustible Lemon]

19 hours ago, huilun02 said:

But will it be on Apple app store? Because Apple also takes a 30% cut of everything, and iPhones have no other way of getting apps.

If they make more off Android users, they damn well provide good support for those users.

Not that I play mobile games at all...

It's already on Apple store. They don't really have a choice - you can't sideload apps on iOS as a regular user.
I do agree that this is a terrible move. I already see all the apps promising free in-game currency and fake Fortnite apps. Also updated will be very annoying to manage. 

[alextulu]

On 8/3/2018 at 4:29 PM, NinerL said:

“30 percent is disproportionate to the cost of the services these stores perform, such as payment processing, download bandwidth, and customer service,”

That might be true on Steam, but the Play Store also pays for Android development, since Android is free.

[Zodiark1593]

9 hours ago, Combustible Lemon said:

It's already on Apple store. They don't really have a choice - you can't sideload apps on iOS as a regular user.
I do agree that this is a terrible move. I already see all the apps promising free in-game currency and fake Fortnite apps. Also updated will be very annoying to manage. 

I don't see updates being a terrible nuisance as it can probably simply be handled by the game itself. Unreal Engine 4 likely already has some backend built in to handle standalone updates, or otherwise a client side software can be implemented to handle downloading and updating the game.

 

There is quite a divide in opinion here though. The biggest strength of Android is in being able to bypass any centralized market and install whatever the user wants, though it is also a big security flaw for those without the know-how to understand the responsibility. (Certainly a big problem during the Windows XP days.)

 

A 30% cut of a very high grossing game is quite significant. I can certainly understand why Epic would want to bypass the Play Store. However, this is quite a brazen move by, this will push the responsibility onto them for providing some means of security and support as well, owing to the playerbase being the impulsive type. The game being high profile will likely mean a lot of scammers and fake clients too. If things go badly, I could see the high school tech nerds making a lot of money in fixing borked devices.

 

Amazon's own market doesn't seem to have too many issues, so with the right measures implemented (a small sideloaded client program that is responsible for downloading and keeping the game updated and secured), this could go off without a hitch. It will be vitally important for Epic to communicate to the userbase the safe sites for downloading the client software.

[NinerL]

15 hours ago, dro3m said:

If Apple were to make a game... It would be Fortnite. I wonder if Epic and Apple have a secret relationship.

It looks like it's going to be on the Samsung app store, and they'll have exclusivity for 1-120 days according to xda developers

[TAHIRMIA]

4 hours ago, NinerL said:

It looks like it's going to be on the Samsung app store, and they'll have exclusivity for 1-120 days according to xda developers

Probably will release with the next device then. Within the week of it being out, people will have probably managed to install it on other devices anyway.

[catplayskeyboard]

On 8/3/2018 at 10:51 AM, huilun02 said:

But will it be on Apple app store? Because Apple also takes a 30% cut of everything, and iPhones have no other way of getting apps.

If they make more off Android users, they damn well provide good support for those users.

Not that I play mobile games at all...

Well your correct, they have to put it on the App Store no matter what because they can’t download apks.

 

[Nena Trinity]

Its on APKpure so...

 

MT6739 device: refused to install... (3GB RAM requiement? Wut? How does iPhone 8 play this? Okay no worry I have another device!) :3

 

MT6750 device: Installed but GPU is not supported... :c

[Aeternalis]

Eh, if you really need a battle royale game off google play, PUBG mobile is great. It's miles better than the PC version and the insultingly poorly made xbox version.

 

Epic is just seeing dollar signs and doesn't want to lose any of the fortune they're making off the game.