When Fortnite was first announced for Android devices, Epic Games decided to not have it on the Google Play Store. A year and a half later, the company has since released the game on the Play Store. This decision didn’t seem to be very willing, from what the company had to say in its official statement.
Epic Games’ full statement:
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.
Because of this, we’ve launched Fortnite for Android on the Google Play Store. We’ll continue to operate the Epic Games App and Fortnite outside of Google Play, too.
We hope that Google will revise its policies and business dealings in the near future, so that all developers are free to reach and engage in commerce with customers on Android and in the Play Store through open services, including payment services, that can compete on a level playing field.
Ever since Google Play Store announced that it will be taking a 30% cut, Epic Games has been known to be vocal about the issue. Its own PC games store “Epic Games” is only taking a 12% cut from every sale. The publisher has avoided letting Google take the 30% cut by making the game available on its own website. However, the company has since decided it isn’t worth the hassle anymore to avoid the sales fee.
At least, now you can download the game right from the Google Play Store itself. Not to mention, updating the game would be a lot easier too. To get Fortnite for yourself, it’s free to play on the Google Play Store link here. It is also featured in our list of all the free games you can download during quarantine period.
(Source: Forbes)