Fortnite developer Epic Games is back on iOS, thanks to the launch of the Epic Games Store for mobile platforms. Epic’s game and app marketplace is now available for download on iPhones in the European Union and on Android devices worldwide, Epic announced Friday.
The mobile version of the Epic Games Store — which launched on Mac and Windows PC in 2018 — is launching with three Epic-made games: Fortnite (including Fortnite Battle Royale, Lego Fortnite, Rocket Racing, and Fortnite Festival), Rocket League Sideswipe, and Fall Guys. Epic says it’s working with outside developers to bring their games and apps to the Epic Games Store on mobile, and is also launching its games through a third-party store called AltStore.
Apple removed Fortnite from its App Store in 2020. Apple made that move — with Android maker Google doing the same on the Google Play store — in response to Epic allowing players to purchase the in-game currency V-Bucks directly within Fortnite, thereby circumventing Apple and Google’s own payment processing, which takes a 30% cut from in-app purchases. Epic Games filed antitrust lawsuits against both Apple and Google shortly after Fortnite was removed from each company’s digital store.
Epic Games is bringing its own app store and its popular games back to iOS thanks to the European Union’s Digital Markets Act. That legislation requires six “gatekeepers” — Google parent company Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, TikTok maker ByteDance, Meta, and Microsoft — to adhere to certain guidelines. Those guidelines include allowing third parties, like Epic, to interoperate with gatekeepers’ built-in software and services, and letting customers interact with businesses outside of gatekeepers’ platforms.
The Epic Games Store and Epic’s games won’t be available on iOS outside of the EU for the foreseeable future. In a news release, Epic said that “Apple is still blocking all other iOS users outside of Europe from accessing Fortnite and Epic Games Store for iOS.”
Installing the Epic Games Store on iOS and Android platforms isn’t easy, though, even if you’re in the EU. Epic says installing its external app store is a “lengthy” 15-step process, due to Apple and Google introducing “intentionally poor-quality install experiences laden by multiple steps, confusing device settings, and scare screens.” But Epic is offering some incentives to push players on mobile devices to download the Epic Games Store and its games, with a handful of exclusive in-game cosmetics available to Fortnite fans who play the iOS or Android versions.
In a call with journalists this week, Epic Games Store general manager Steve Allison said, “The reason we’re starting Friday with just our first-party games is that Fortnite coming back to iOS is a very strong story for players. We expect motivated players will work their way through that [install experience]. Many will drop off, but many will make it through.”
Allison said the company’s strategy in launching a mobile store is similar to that of the Epic Games Store on PC, which has used free weekly games to incentivize customers to install the marketplace.
Image: Epic Games
“Our goal is to get on as many [devices], because once you get through those steps, once you have the Epic Games Store on your device, or [alternative app stores] Aptoide or AltStore, getting an app is just like it is on iOS or Android. It’s one or two clicks,” Allison said. “So we’re really using this time between now and the end of the year to get as many installs as possible, so we have as many users in a good place as possible, so they don’t have to experience that friction and frustrate third-party developers who join us.”
Added Allison, “We’re pretty stoked about how the tactics [and] strategies we’ve done on PC have worked for us. We believe it’s going to be a similar outcome on mobile.”
For now, Epic’s efforts to launch an alternative to Apple and Google’s app stores are limited to EU countries. There are no plans to bring Fortnite and the mobile Epic Games Store back to U.S. consumers, but Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney says there’s hope for other markets. Recent legislation, including the U.K.’s Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act and a similar law in Japan, could help bring more third-party stores to devices controlled by Apple or Google operating systems.
“It’s been a massive failure of the United States regulatory and political system that there’s not a crisp, clean action to stop the monopolization occurring in the United States and in the whole world by a U.S. company,” Sweeney said on a call with journalists. “That’s been disheartening to see. But hopefully, over the coming years, somebody will continue to take that on. In the meantime, we foresee being locked out of the iOS App Store, with the exception of these territories, for the foreseeable future, for perhaps years more, as we continue to fight worldwide.”
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