It’s been a long time coming, with a couple of big giant companies standing in the way. But Epic Games announced it will finally be able to release third-party mobile games on the Epic Games Store.
It’s been an epic ordeal to get this far, but the launch includes games from tens of developers, with both paid games and free games available on Android worldwide and iOS in the European Union, said Tim Sweeney, CEO of Epic Games, in a press briefing.
Epic is launching its free games program on Android worldwide and iOS in the European Union, and a variety of new layout updates and functionality to the app. We will seek comments from Apple and Google regarding Epic’s allegations throughout the article.
The Epic Games Store’s precursor was a launcher for Epic’s own games, started in 2014. Then Epic Games started the Epic Games Store fore real in 2018 in a battle with Valve. It launched PC games at that time as an effort to create a viable alternative to Steam’s near monopoly on PC game distribution.
(Update: Epic noted it was working through some bugs in a tweet and would have more to say later).
Then, after winning some legal battles in the against Google and getting the benefit of the Digital Markets Act in the EU, and a minor win against Apple on steering in the U.S., Epic expanded to include Epic’s own mobile versions of Fortnite, Fall Guys and Rocket League Sideswipe a few months ago.
Now Sweeney said Epic is breaking through more of the friction and adding third-party mobile games as well.
To celebrate, Epic said it launching the free games program on mobile, kicking off with some games that will be available for free on Android and iOS (in the EU) through the Epic Games Store mobile app until February 20. To start, there will be new games offered each month until we move to a weekly schedule later this year.
In addition to great third-party games, Epic is introducing new app features, including Epic Account login, with persistent status across Epic’s games on iOS and Android. The company also added a new auto-update feature to the Epic Games Store Mobile app, so that your games and apps are ready when you are.
For developers, the Epic Games Store brings the same great terms to mobile, including the 88/12 revenue share for payments Epic processes and 0% on third-party payments.
Epic also recently debuted Launch Everywhere with Epic. This new program offers a royalty rate reduction from 5% to 3.5% on all platforms and stores for eligible Unreal Engine games published on the Epic Games Store from 2025 onwards.
To be eligible, games must ship on the Epic Games Store before or at the same time it’s released on other stores on corresponding platforms that a game supports (PC, Mac, Android, and in the future, iOS). This program is inclusive of games participating in Epic First Run, which helps developers to maximize their revenue share during their initial run on the Store.
Epic said it couldn’t be more excited to continue delivering new updates to the app, and to welcome even more third-party games in the near future. Epic’s self-publishing tools for mobile games are currently available in an invite-only beta at this time, and the company plans to open them to all developers and publishers later this year.
If you’re a developer interested in distributing your game on PC or mobile (or both!), Epic Games encourages you to reach out to its team by filling out a submission form.
Sweeney’s view of the friction from Apple and Google
In five years, Epic has sold billions of dollars worth of third-party PC games on the Epic Games Store since it launched, Sweeney said. Late ast year, the Epic Games Store expanded to support Epic’s own mobile games on iOS in Europe and Android worldwide.
“In Europe, we’re taking advantage of the European Digital Markets Act, which forced Apple to allow other stores to compete,” Sweeney said. “And today, we have the Epic Games Store on Android available everywhere including the United States. And then we have the Epic Games Store for iOS in Europe. But right now, as of today, they only have Epic’s Fortnite, Fall Guys, and Rocket League Sideswipe.”
“But shortly we are opening up the Epic Games Store to mobile games from third parties, starting with a small catalog and expanding over time to a very big catalog. We’ll talk about that in some detail. But our aim here isn’t just to launch a bunch of different stores and different places. But to build a single cross-platform store in which, in the era of multi-platform games, if you buy a game or digital items in one place, you have the ability to own them everywhere. And the market has been lacking that.”
He added, “This Epic Games Store Launch is part of a much bigger strategy to serve all customers and help all developers reach all gamers everywhere in the world. And this is very much motivated by Epic’s long-time role as both a game developer and a toolmaker supporting other game developers. It’s an engine that’s been built for ourselves long ago and is available to everybody and is used by hundreds of thousands or millions of developers to build cool stuff.”
The App Store economy is far from open, despite efforts of Epic and EU regulators
While this is a progress for Epic Games in opening up the app store distribution market, there are still a lot of anti-competitive hurdles that Epic and game developers face, Sweeney said.
The Digital Markets Act in Europe prevents “gateway platforms” from restraining competition and it enables alternative app stores. But Apple is fighting the regulations and it requires players to go through a number of intimidating “scare screens” before players can buy games on their phones from other stores, Sweeney said.
He said Apple also imposes a 0.5 euro fee on any download over one million for developers to pay Apple a “core technology fee” if they take their games to other stores. This move by Apple is not going over well, but it’s one of the things that Sweeney said is intimidating developers and causing friction for players.
While this is an important step in the antitrust fight, Apple continues to ban Epic, an American company, from launching its store on iOS devices in the U.S., Epic said.
Even in places like the European Union where policy makers have passed laws, Apple and Google’s non-compliance continues to undermine competition and developer and consumer choice. So far none of the 100 highest grossing mobile game developers are willing to distribute their games on the Epic Games Store because of the Core Technology Fee and Apple and Google’s onerous restrictions and scare screens, Sweeney said.
Epic will pay Apple’s illegal Core Technology Fee on free games deals on Epic Games Store for first year
As noted, if a developer wants the ability to distribute their app outside the App Store, Apple imposes a €0.50 “Core Technology Fee” (CTF) on every app that is installed on iPhones and iPads once it crosses one million installs.
This means that over that threshold, even if a developer decides to list just one game on the Epic Games Store, they have to pay the fee every time any of their games are downloaded on iPhones or iPads, whether it’s from the Apple App Store or an alternative store. This is on top of the CTF Apple charges every time an alternative app store is installed. This is prohibitively expensive and a blatant violation of the Digital Markets Act, Epic Games said.
To ease the burden, Epic will be covering the CTF for all titles for developers that participate in the Epic Games Store’s free games program on iOS or iPadOS devices, regardless of where the featured title is downloaded from. This is not financially viable for every third party app store or for Epic long term, but Epic will do it while the European Commission investigates Apple’s non-compliance with the law. Epic will make the payments for the first year only regarding the CTF.
The CTF is the No. 1 barrier for developers looking to distribute their app outside the App Store, Sweeney said. One indie developer (under condition of anonymity) told Epic, “If we have to pay for it, that’s a big burden [for us]. If that fee amount is not provided by Epic or is not covered, we would like to not release on iOS until the CTF conditions are eliminated or if an Epic subsidy can be received.”
Another mid-sized PC and mobile game publisher told Epic, “The major concern is connected with additional agreements that are needed to be signed between Apple and the Developer. It takes time plus, it adds specific requirements like additional payments that you have to do if your downloads reach 1M+ units.”
Epic said the developer quotes are anonymous due to fear of retaliation from Apple.
Apple’s and Google’s lengthy third party store install process deters players over 50% of the time
Sweeney said there have been [29 million] installs of the Epic Games Store on mobile devices since it launched, well short of Epic’s goal of 100 million installs by the end of 2024.
So far, more than 50% of the time a player tries to install the Epic Games Store on Android or iOS they are unsuccessful due to onerous scare screens. In the European Union, an additional five million attempts to install the Epic Games Store were blocked by Apple’s browser and operating system “eligibility requirements.”
The fight continues
But this is a hill that Epic will die on. It will be interesting to see what could change with a changing of the guard among regulators in the European Union and at federal regulators in the U.S. under the administration of President Donald Trump. Sweeney said the big platform owners all showed up at the inauguration and made donations to the inauguration event to curry antitrust favor with Trump.
Epic said developers and players deserve to choose where they distribute their games and how they play them. It’s that simple.
“We’re working with regulators in the European Union to stop Apple and Google from breaking the law, and we plan to bring the Epic Games Store to iOS in the UK and Japan at the end of this year,” Epic said. “Once policymakers and courts in other countries like Brazil, Australia, Korea and the United States make it possible, we’ll bring the Epic Games Store to iOS in those countries too. We will keep fighting to break down barriers not just for the Epic Games Store, but for everyone.”
Progress on the Epic Games Store
Steve Allison, vice president and general manager of the Epic Games Store, said in a press briefing that Epic was still counting up how many third-party games will be available at launch, but it would be around 20.
“We expect hundreds more in the coming months and expect those to release in batches Tuesdays,” he said.
Some publishing tools will be released to make it easier to launch the games and Allison hopes the store catalog will really grow rapidly this summer.
Allison said the free games program that has been a critical part of scaling the Epic Games Store on PC to over 75 million multi-active users. With that program, Epic Games gives away a developer’s game and compensates the developer for that. Players get a free game and that attracts them to open an account on the Epic Games Store. And eventually, that pays off with more users buying games on the store over time. It’s a big upfront investment that costs Epic Games a lot of money. But Allison said the program can’t get off the ground if Apple charges its fee, a Core Technology Fee, if devs take the iOS games to other stores like Epic’s. The friction from that is real, Allison said.
Allison predicted that, because Google doesn’t have a Core Technology Fee, that there will be more mobile Android games on the Epic Games Store than iOS games.
“Moving forward, we’re working tirelessly to add the games and then do the self-publishing tools,” Allison said. “It’s going to be a really critical part of our growth. We are planning to launch in the UK and Japan later this year. If you recall, there’s new laws that have been passed there.”
A Q&A with Epic’s Tim Sweeney, Steve Allison and Corie Wright
After making statements, the Epic executives took questions from the press. Here are some of the answers that they gave.
“So the core technology fee breaks the economics of a lot of games just by taxing the distribution through alternate stores. A game that makes less than 50 cents per active user per year just becomes unviable and cannot exist in the market because of the technology fee,” Sweeney said. “But Apple’s actual design and intent, of course, for the technology fees is much more insidious than that. Because Apple says, ‘If you ship on the app store, then you collect 30% of revenue, and that’s all there is. But if you also choose to chip on competing stores, then you not only have to pay us 30% of all of the revenue from your payments, you also have to pay us 50 cents on all distribution of the app, both through third-party stores and through the app store. And so that’s ruinous.”
That’s why Epic Games will pay the Core Technology Fee for free games that mobile developers distribute on the Epic Games Store.
“We have to be the ones breaking the logjam there,” Sweeney said. “The Apple App Store has 100% market share. And we’re in it now with a fraction of 1%.”
In a press briefing, Epic’s Corie Wright, vice president of public policy, said the European Commission has opened several investigations into a number of issues surrounding Apple’s noncompliance, including steering, including the CTF.
“Those have specific timelines that they need to meet under the Digital Markets Act, and we’re expecting to get results of those investigations and potentially fines within weeks to months depending on when the investigation was kicked off,” Wright said. “Every signal we have had from the European Commission is that they have significant concerns about how Apple has pretended to implement the Digital Markets Act and instead has erected a series of barriers that are defeating the economic investments and competitiveness that Tim highlighted at the beginning.”
Those rulings might happen in the first half of 2025, Wright said.
Sweeney said he did not think anything has changed on the antitrust front because of changes with the EU leadership and with the new administration the U.S.
Asked how long Epic could afford to subsidize the mobile game developers by reimbursing them for the free games’ Core Technology Fee by Apple, Sweeny said in a tongue-in-cheek way, “I think we might run into serious financial problems after a couple more decades of this but we’re determined to fight this out and I expect large parts of this struggle will go on throughout the rest of this decade and we’re fully committed to going through it and then investing to break through.”
He noted that Epic Games has a great business underlying the store with Fortnite and the Unreal Engine, and that’s how Epic can afford this.
“We’re seeing this as an investment in Epic’s future. Both our future directly as a game developer ourselves, we see a much greater opportunity for Fortnite as a business if the market is open and competition is allowed on iOS and on Android and tech companies and their junk fees are crushing market entrants. But we also see opportunity for all developers. We see an opening up of the market as offering a real breakout opportunity for Epic as a game company and an ecosystem company.”
He noted that since the launch of Fortnite Battle Royale in 2017, Epic is now a company with billions of dollars of revenue a year and thousands of employees. If Epic is successful here, Sweeney believes Epic can be successful in the next phase of what people are calling the metaverse.
Asked why other game companies haven’t joined its cause — like Roblox — Sweeney said it was fear and that Apple and Google continually “manipulating them, sometimes incentivizing them, sometimes threatening them to not complain, to not compete, and continue to be vassals.”
“Roblox does a number of things that Apple’s policies prohibit, but Apple seemingly does enforce. For example, you can buy $100 worth of Robux, their virtual currency, on Roblox’s website, but not through the iOS app. That’s Roblox’s way of trying to get big spenders to spend outside of platforms and not pay the 30% fee. Why doesn’t Apple enforce the rule? I don’t know, but I think there’s always a dance going on there. And you may notice in the case of Roblox, both Apple and Google convinced Roblox to file amicus briefs in Epic versus Apple and Epic versus Google, supporting their oppressors.”
He added, “The sad thing about Roblox is Apple and Google make all of the profit. Well, actually, they make more than all of the profit from Roblox. When you look at the underlying economics, they’re trapped. It’s sad. It’s both frustrating and it’s also sad that they’ve gained that much power that they can basically twist their competitors into being their own. What companies really need is protection so that Apple and Google can no longer manipulate them. They have those in Europe. They need them in the United States, they need them on more parts of the world so that all businesses can freely compete and can live in a world where they are not afraid of the platform makers arbitrarily clamping them down and denying them access.”
Pressed for info on the U.S. government, Sweeney said that Vice President J.D. Vance has commented on Apple and Google practices, including App Store practices. in the past. Some of the FTC commissioners have also spoken on these issues.
“Nobody is a fan of big tech power. And I would really hope that there’s a drive to ensure that U.S. companies, big and small, companies of all sizes, can fairly compete and offer consumers better deals and can always put forward and not be trapped underneath these monopolies, Sweeney said.
Regarding TikTok, Sweeney said there has not been a huge effort to carry the TikTok app in the Epic Games Store.
If a developer had a million downloads for a game and it got another million downloads through Epic’s store in the free games deal, the developer would owe Apple 500,000 euros for those downloads because they happened on an alternative store and not Apple’s. That’s more than they likely would make on the Epic Games Store.
“We’re going to have a hard time breaking through with the top 350, which is really critical to our sustainability and growth as long as the CTF is in place,” Allison said.
Allison said Epic Games is talking to all of the big and small game developers and it is hoping to get 20 or so developers at the outset for third-party mobile games on the Epic Games Store.
Sweeney said the “scare screens” are intended to deter consumers from using the alternative Epic Games Store instead of the usual Google Play or Apple App Store.
“This is the insidious part. We want small developers to be able to do this. So they can say, look, here’s some competition. But they want to dissuade all of the big developers because they know 99% of the revenue in the industry comes from big games and big developers. And so they want to put on a show demonstrating the existence of competition while actually making it not work in practice,” Sweeney said. “But the large majority of the top iOS games who have been invited to their store have said yes on Android because the business works for them, and they have said no to the Epic Games Store on iOS because the CTF fee will cause them to lose vastly more money on the App Store, where Apple is now imposing this new fee, than they will make from the Epic Games Store.”
He noted it takes 15 steps on an iPhone before a user can proceed to sideloading on an alternative store.
“This is a competition denial strategy and that’s the insidious nature of it. It is utterly dissuading all of the top iOS games from coming to our store by adding a new tax to their own games even when they’re distributed through the App Store,” Sweeney said.
Allison said that over time, he expects to see the top 200 Android games as well on the Epic Games Store, not on iOS because of the fee.
I noted that Apple has a loophole for physical goods. Companies like Uber or grocers don’t have to pay a 30% fee for the purchase of physical goods via Apple’s apps. Walmart noted it was doing experiments where it was selling physical goods in its stores through game apps, where people could pick the merchandise up at a store near them. I wondered if Sweeney saw an opportunity there.
But Sweeney said, “Grocery stores have a profit margin in the very, very low single digits, often less than one digit. Apple couldn’t impose a fee on physical goods because it would completely break it. It would completely make digital purchasing of those physical goods impractical. We don’t see that as a way to make a profit because those are already extraordinarily ahead of businesses. There’s not a dispute really in the actual world about physical goods as Apple hasn’t tried to tax that yet. The real problem is digital goods. It’s a multi-tens of billions of dollar global economy. And there is where the problem is.”
Wright said, “I would say the physical goods example, coupled with what Tim explained about Mac and the ability to download apps there, completely underlines the fallacy. Apple had the ability to lock down a mobile phone and charge 30% on digital purchases. It’s ludicrous. There’s nothing that is substantially different between any of those things that justify Apple’s policy on anything other than economic enrichment and business decision. There’s no technical reason. There’s no security reason.”
Wright added, “To Tim’s point, they could not have done this on physical goods. While online purchasing and shopping was getting up to speed, it is entirely true, but they have effectively boiled the frog on digital purchases and acclimated developers to do this, and more developers need to fight back on it because it doesn’t have to be this way, and it shouldn’t be this way.”
Allison said Epic isn’t about exploiting loopholes. It’s trying to fix the app stores.
