A new Epic Games Store comes to Apple and Google’s app stores
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.
