Epic submits to Google's demands, releases Fortnite on the Play Store

Fortnite is one of the most popular video games across PC, console, and mobile platforms. But despite its popularity and a huge fan base, the shooter-survival game was only available as a third-party software downloadable outside Google’s official mobile app marketplace, until now.

18 months since its debut, Epic Games has finally released the battle royale officially on Google’s Play Store. Epic Games says the reason for introducing Fornite to the Play Store is because Google puts third-party software at a disadvantage since it warns users of potential security issues that may not exist. The Verge reported that this could, in turn, characterize any software not issued through the Play Store as malware.

Not only did Epic find this a tedious process, but it also poses several challenges for the company. A statement from Epic read: “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.”

Fortnite is currently available for download on the Google Play Store. The APK file is around 100MB and once downloaded, will have to be patched to the most recent addition before playing the game. Epic Games will also release all future updates through the Play Store henceforth. While this will make getting updates more convenient and streamlined, it also means Epic Games will now have to pay Google a 30 percent cut for all in-app purchases, a mandated Play Store fee.