Epic Games to Bring Third-Party Games to its Mobile Store in the EU

Epic Games said today that it would bring free and paid third-party games to its new mobile store on Android and iOS. It will offer paid games for free, as it does on the PC, on a monthly basis before moving to a weekly schedule. And to ease this process, it will swallow the anticompetitive 50 euro cent “core technology fee” that Apple charges developers on iOS per download when they bring any game to other mobile stores and their total downloads across all titles exceed one million downloads in one year.

I had to cobble this together from third-party reports, as Epic held a press briefing but hasn’t yet posted anything about this change on its website.

“We’re seeing this as an investment in Epic’s future, both our future directly as a game developer ourselves, we see a much greater opportunity for Fortnite as a business if the market is open and competition is allowed on iOS, on an Android, and these big tech companies and their junk fees aren’t crushing market entrances,” Epic founder and CEO Tim Sweeney told IGN. “But we also see opportunity for all developers. And because we have businesses serving all developers, the Unreal Engine and the Epic Games Store, our online services, we see an opening up of the market as offering a real breakout opportunity for Epic as a game company and an ecosystem company.”

According to this and other reports, Epic plans to battle Apple and Google on their onerous mobile app store fees and policies for decades to come, if necessary. And it can spend billions of dollars on this effort if needed. Sweeney says that Epic will bring its mobile store to the United States, Brazil, Australia, Korea, and other countries once policymakers and courts in those countries take its side. “We will keep fighting to break down barriers not just for the Epic Games Store, but for everyone,” he said.

As for what’s changing, Epic Games launched its mobile store on Android and iOS last August, but only in the EU, where lawmakers demanded that the Big Tech firms open up their ecosystems to competition. It launched with first-party games like Fortnite and Rocket League, and the process users encounter is unnecessarily convoluted on both platforms because Apple and Google are actively undermining the company. Today, Epic Games said it would add 20 third-party games to the store, and it will pay the core technology fee for those developers for one year to help offset the cost.

Epic expected to exceed 100 million downloads through its mobile store by the end of 2024, but the final figure was about 29 million downloads. Epic blames the convoluted processes Apple and Google instituted, which include so-called “scare screens” aimed at driving users away. “We won’t really have app store freedom, even in Europe, and actual user choice and competition, unless the DMA is robustly enforced,” Mr. Sweeney told the Verge. Epic decided to pay the fees after none of the top 100 mobile game developers agreed to offer their titles through the store because of those fees.

Epic is also giving away paid games for free, with more added each month before it turns into a weekly program later this year.