“Fortnite” for Android won’t be available on the Google Play Store

Epic
Games

• When “Fortnite” finally arrives on Android in the
  coming weeks, you won’t find it on the Google Play
  Store.
• Instead, Epic Games says, you’ll download the game
  directly from Epic. 
• By skipping the Google Play Store, Epic Games doesn’t
  have to pay Google a cut of the massive profits from
  “Fortnite.”

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Sorry, Google: When the biggest game in the world, “Fortnite,”
arrives on Android in the coming weeks, it’s skipping Google’s
Play Store.

Instead, interested players will download the game directly from
its maker, Epic Games. It’s a smart move for Epic Games, who
won’t have to pay Google the usual 30% cut from the game’s
profits.

“The 30% store tax is a high cost in a world where game
developers’ 70% must cover all the cost of developing, operating,
and supporting their games,” Epic Games founder and CEO Tim
Sweeney told me in an email interview this week.

“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,” he said. “But on
open platforms, 30% is disproportionate to the cost of the
services these stores perform, such as payment processing,
download bandwidth, and customer service. We’re intimately
familiar with these costs from our experience operating
‘Fortnite’ as a direct-to-customer service on PC and Mac.”

Sweeney would know, as Epic Games is already paying that “high
cost” on Apple’s iPhone and iPad. Apple is taking a 30% cut of
all money made by “Fortnite” on iOS devices.

The Battle Pass in “Fortnite” costs about
$10.
Epic Games

Additionally, by handling distribution and maintenance of
“Fortnite” itself, Epic Games can maintain a “direct
relationship” with its players, says Sweeney. 

That said, even blockbusters like “Pokémon Go” use Google Play
for distribution. It’s the app store on Android,
and the place where people would expect to find “Fortnite” for
download.

In so many words: What Epic is doing sounds weird because it’s
pretty weird. 

It also makes a lot of sense given the position “Fortnite” is in
— it’s the most popular game in the world. A major reason for
distributing games on Android through Google Play is discovery.
How else will people find your app if it’s not in the store? But
people are already acutely aware of “Fortnite,” and navigating to
a website on their phone instead of the Google Play Store isn’t a
huge ask.

As Sweeney put it: “The installation process is pretty
straightforward and is only a one-time effort, so the downsides
are quite small.”

“Fortnite” is expected to arrive on Android at some point this
summer — Epic Games hasn’t put a firm release date on it yet, but

rumors point to a late August launch on Samsung’s upcoming
Galaxy Note 9 phone with a wider Android launch in late
September.