Epic Games to offer Android titles on its own store next year; company will take 12% of revenues
Fortnite creator Epic Games certainly hit a grand slam with the game. To date, Fortnite has brought in over $1 billion in revenue for the company while getting 200 million consumers to register. The Wall Street Journal said on Saturday that Epic CEO Tim Sweeney has decided to do something about his contention that Apple and Google both take too big a cut from their mobile app stores.
Sweeney has long been opposed to the 30% that the two tech giants keep from revenue generated by an app or game. That is why you won't find Fortnite in the Google Play Store. And now the company is competing directly against Google with its plan to add Android games to the store that the company launched earlier this month for the PC and Mac platforms. The games for Android will be listed sometime in 2019. Because of the closed nature of iOS, Epic will be unable to offer any games for Apple's mobile devices.
To get developers to write for the Epic Games store, Epic will allow developers to keep 88% of the revenue collected from their games. That means Sweeney's company will be getting a 12% cut as opposed to the 30% that both Apple and Google take. The lower cut has already forced the top source for PC games, Steam, to lower its cut of game-derived revenue. According to one analyst, Apple and Google would see their pre-tax earnings cut by 14% if they were to match Epic's lower take. In other words, don't hold your breath expecting that to happen.
If you're the owner of an Android device and want to get in on the excitement over Fortnite, you can visit the Epic Games store by clicking right here. Those with an iOS device can load the game from the App Store by using this link.
Apple and Google get a 30% cut of revenue derived from apps and games listed in their respective app stores
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