I a proverb of four years describing Epic Games’ battle against Apple over in-app purchases is nearing its near climax. Epic plans to use its games, including some incredibly popular ones Fortnitein the third-party app marketplace AltStore, not just in its own Epic Games store. It’s good news for iOS users (at least in the EU) but bad news for Samsung fans as you won’t get it anymore. Fortnite or any other Epic mobile titles on the Galaxy Store.
In January, Apple a crack opened in his poorly fenced garden to comply with the Digital Markets Act of the European Union. This allowed third-party app stores on iOS for the first time in the 17-year history of the iPhone. After that news dropped, Epic announced Fortnite will return to iOS “via the Epic Games Store.” The company said it is leaving some app stores “acting as rent collectors without competitive force and giving all developers a fair share.”
According to Epic, the company is pulling out of the Samsung Galaxy store. Epic CEO Tim Sweeney said this is because Samsung blocks sideloading by default. Epic sued Google, calling the Google Play Store anti-competitive. The company says in its post that Google proposed to Samsung “to prevent competition in the Android application distribution market.” Fortnite currently not in Google Play Store or.
As explained in this week’s report on Android Authority, new Samsung devices with One UI 6.1.1 block sideloading by default. Yes, you can re-enable it through the settings, although many users didn’t know when or where to do it.
In its Thursday blog post, Epic said the market for its games will “come to Android worldwide and iOS in the European Union,” though it didn’t give a specific date. The company announced that Fortnite and other Epic mobile games will eventually be available on third-party iOS app stores, in particular AltStore, for iPhone users in the EU. Those games are coming to two other third-party stores “soon,” the company said.
In March, Apple suspended an Epic developer’s account, citing that Epic had been “definitely dishonest” about its contractual agreements, according to a letter sent to game publishers. Epic made that letter public, along with the CEO Tim Sweeney said they lost their access to his anti-Apple tweets. Apple told Gizmodo that the issue was caused by “epic’s gross breach of its contractual obligations.” After two days, Apple is restored Epic developer account in EU.
“We’ve been fighting for a long time for retail rights to exist and compete fairly on iOS and Android, and progress is spreading globally, in the form of the European DMA, common rules in the UK and Japan, regulatory investigations around the world. , and the victory in the Epic v Google case in the US.
Epic cites itself as having the better deal for developers. The company takes a 12% discount on all payments on the platform. The company explained that with these full game stores aside, there will be no additional costs due to third-party app store fees. By comparison, the largest gaming marketplace on PC, Valve’s Steam platform, typically takes 30% of a game’s revenue.
The EU will be the first to get the Epic Games Store on iOS and Android later this year. The game store will be on iOS in the UK e second half of 2025.
As a reminder, you don’t really need it Fortnite app for playing the game on iPhone or Android. You can stream it Xbox Cloud Gaming or other services such as Amazon Luna if you trust your internet speed to handle both streaming and your in-game lag.
Are Epic and Big Daddy Sweeney right to be angry? Yes, though only in terms of the company’s limited garden walls on both Android and iOS. But all these contradictions hit consumers very hard. A new player probably won’t know where to go actually playing Fortnite or any other Epic mobile game. Until Epic finally releases its app store for both ecosystems, many players will be sweating in their banana suits, scratching their heads.
Source link
