
In 2020, Epic launched lawsuits against Apple and Google, attempting to break the app store duopoly. Four years later, we’re starting to see some change.
The Epic Games Store launched on mobile this August, available on iPhones in the EU and on Android worldwide. Its launch marks the return of Fortnite to iOS — albeit in the EU only — four years after it was banned by Apple. Alongside Fortnite, Epic Games Store features two other first-party games: Rocket League Sideswipe and the all-new Fall Guys for mobile.
“We’ve long been advocating for the rights of stores to exist and compete fairly on iOS and Android, and progress is spreading across the globe, in the form of Europe’s DMA, similar laws in the U.K. and Japan, regulatory investigations around the world, and victory in the Epic v Google litigation in the U.S.,” said Epic when its mobile store launched.
“As operators of the Epic Games Store, we’ll take advantage of this opportunity to bring all developers a great deal on our store. And as game developers ourselves, we want to do everything we can to support other stores that strive to bring all developers their own great deals.”
Epic’s court case against Apple in the U.S. was largely unsuccessful (with the exception of anti-steering rule changes), but the Fortnite creator won its case against Google.
Today, we’ll break down the early results from Epic’s mobile store launch, the Epic vs. Google ruling, and how this may shake out.
Epic Games Store’s Mobile Launch

According to Epic, its games store has accumulated 10M mobile downloads in its launch month, and its goal is to reach 100M by the end of the year. These launch numbers fall short of Fortnite’s 28M global launch month downloads in 2018 and even Rocket League Sideswipe’s 11.7M launch month downloads in 2022. However, for a more apples-to-apples comparison, during those launch months, Sensor Tower estimates that Fortnite and Rocket League Sideswipe generated 5.8M and 2.6M downloads, respectively, on iOS and Android in the EU.
10M launch downloads for EGS is good progress in the EU, but Epic has an uphill battle to hit its 100M goal by the end of the year and bring its Fortnite back up to the heights it once experienced on mobile. (It should also be noted that the Rocket League game available via EGS is different from Rocket League Sideswipe, but the point still stands.)
All three Epic games are also available on the AltStore PAL for iOS users in the EU, and Epic also plans to bring these games to other stores around the world, including Aptoide’s iOS store in the EU and ONE Store on Android.
This hints at Epic’s larger goal – to open up the mobile ecosystem to broader competition and bring it to parity with open platforms like PC.
Scare Screens

Epic Games Store’s relatively slow start can be at least partially blamed on how cumbersome it is to download. Installing it is no easy task, and only one for those who can brave several "scare screens," as Epic calls them.
But once installed, the Epic Games Store app itself is a bare bones storefront that lacks any profile or login features, and is solely for downloading first-party games.
The friction unfortunately doesn’t end at the Epic Games Store install, as installing Fortnite, for example, comes with its own set of convoluted "scare screens." After making it through this lengthy procedure and launching Fortnite, the game has a 14GB pre-load before prompting players to finally log in and play.

Epic blames Apple and Google for these lengthy installation experiences, and says they are intentional. In promotional videos to help new users install its store, Epic says that it is “working with regulators around the world to make this process easier in the future.”
The launch of the Epic Games Store on Android was a prelude to the next lawsuit by Epic against Google and Samsung, this time due to some Samsung phones‘ "auto blocker" software, which turns off the ability to download apps from the web by default.
In the blog announcing the lawsuit, Epic showcased the torturous 21 step process to install its store on Android with Samsung’s "auto blocker" enabled. In protest, Epic has also removed Fortnite and its other games from the Samsung Galaxy Store.
Epic Won the Battle, but Will It Win the 3-Year War?
On October 7th, the Epic vs Google verdict landed in favor of Epic, finding that Google violated California’s Unfair Competition Law. There’s a long list of new rules, but here are the highlights:
- Google can’t require Google Play billing for apps distributed on the Google Play Store, and developers are now allowed to tell users about alternative payment options. Developers can also now set their own prices.
- Android developers must be allowed to link to alternative ways to download their apps outside of the Play Store, in which Google can’t force a cut.
- Google isn’t allowed to pay OEMs to not preinstall alternative storefronts or to preinstall Google Play.
- Google also can’t offer incentives for teams to launch their apps first or exclusively on the Google Play Store — or to not launch on alternative stores.
These are large changes which are only valid for three years starting November 1st 2024. Google has eight months to implement a way for alternative app stores to gain access to the Play Store’s catalog of apps and to open up distribution to third party app stores. The judge argues that rival app stores will now have “a fighting chance of getting off the ground.”

Google has unsurprisingly appealed, arguing that the market sizing definitions shouldn’t be different from what was used in Epic’s unsuccessful case against Apple, and that refusing to help its rivals isn’t a violation of antitrust law. We’ll see how that goes.
The big question is what’s possible over the next three years. Tim Sweeney tweeted a vision for how to win the three year war: “The Google Play Store injunction lasts for 3 years. This means all app developers, store makers, carriers, and manufacturers have 3 years to build a vibrant and competitive Android ecosystem with such critical mass that Google can't stop it.”
The big questions now are if alternative app stores can truly emerge and solidify within three years, and will their progress stick?
The answer likely depends on how “victory” is defined. Sure, many developers, especially in games, would like to see players use their apps via stores and payment channels that have lower fees, but how realistic is that? Going exclusive to any given app store means forgoing most of one’s audience, but being available on new and legacy platforms doesn’t give users a good reason to switch.
Existing network effects and consumer habits are hard to break, and many players of existing games are going to stay where they are. Managing new storefronts with new payment channels might take more work than is desired if behaviors largely revert in three years, especially when this just affects U.S.-based Android players.
Would the top grossing Android games in the U.S. this year — Monopoly Go, Candy Crush Saga, and Royal Match — benefit from going multi-store? It’s hard to say. Perhaps the most compelling part of the answer actually lies in the further exploration of webstores for alternative payments, especially as anti-steering rules wane.
For example, Monopoly Go just rolled out a webstore called Tycoon Club to help bypass the Google Play store fees for IAPs. That path may be more compelling than trying to get consumers to break their downloading habits, although surely we’ll see lots of experimentation. Microsoft, too, plans to launch an alternate mobile game store, which will provide a testing ground for both Candy Crush Saga and Game Pass as a whole.
Success will require moving fast, forming alliances, and providing incentives to both developers and users to try something new. However, given that all of these changes — both in the EU and in the U.S. — remain fragmented by region and OS, the best we can hope for continues to be that Google and Apple will feel compelled to make sweeping changes globally.
That may be wishful thinking, but consistent rules around the world would be a much better and easier reality to operate in, especially for smaller companies.
The Road Ahead
Epic plans to bring its mobile store to parity with the PC/Mac experience, meaning a multi-platform game store with features including:
- Self-publishing tools.
- A store fee of 12% for payments going through Epic and 0% on third party payments.
- Programs like Epic First Run, Now On Epic, and Epic Rewards.
- A new Free Games program.
The launch of Epic Games Store on mobile is the first tangible step towards the ecosystem opening up. Fortnite being back on iOS, even if it’s just in the EU for now, will only help Epic make a further push for parity across all platforms.
Court cases and regulatory pressures represent progress, but Apple and Google will continue to fight. Even the new rules above may change, based on how Google’s appeal plays out.
Either way, we’re glad to see Epic leading the fight. Even though 15-year-old network effects are hard to break, we’re curious to see what type of ripple effects may occur as a result of the changing landscape. Stay tuned for more as the saga continues to unfold.
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In Other News
💸 Funding & Acquisitions:
- MENA start-ups secure $1.3B despite investment decline
- Finnish developer Future Run secures second round of investment led by Supercell
- Tencent and Guillemot family considering a buyout of Ubisoft
📊 Business & Products:
- Amazon and NCsoft's Throne and Liberty tops 3m players in launch week
- Bandai Namco profits rose 56% during Q1 FY25
- Bazooka Tango launches open beta for Shardbound Web3 card game
- 53% of gamers prefer single-player games
- Turkey and Russia ban Discord
👾 Miscellaneous:
- Epic aiming for up to 50 third-party titles and free games program on mobile store by 2025
- What does Halo’s engine change to Unreal mean?
- Shinobi is the next Sega series getting a movie adaptation
- Liftoff launches Cortex, a machine-learning model that improves mobile ads
- 343 rebrands as Halo Studios, working on multiple Unreal Engine 5 games
Content Worth Consuming

How to Sell Games in the Age of TikTok (David Kaye's Essays): "Bertrand Vernizeau, co-founder and partner at Game Seer Venture Partners is an unusual games investor. He and his partner invest out of their own pool of capital, with no outside LPs. This structure affords some unique advantages, but that’s not the only thing they do differently."
Things Blow Up with Mike Pondsmith (The Fourth Curtain): “In this episode of The Fourth Curtain, legendary game designer Mike Pondsmith joins hosts Alex and Aaron for an in-depth conversation about his expansive career, from creating the tabletop RPG Cyberpunk to collaborating with CD Projekt Red on Cyberpunk 2077. Mike discusses his early days in game development, the creation of Night City, and the challenges of translating tabletop concepts into video games.”
Why Web Gaming Died, And How It’s Coming Back (a16z games): “Rob Small was an early believer in the potential for web games. “The idea for Miniclip began amidst the excitement of the late 1990's dot-com boom,” Small says. He and co-founder Tihan Presbie “saw a huge opportunity to democratize gaming across the globe by distributing games freely over the internet.” The company was officially founded in 2001, and quickly found a viral hit with the release of Dancing Bush, an interactive animation that allowed players to make a big-headed George W. Bushperform a variety of spins, thrusts, and screaming leaps. Small says the game clocked up over a billion plays.”
How Sonic Rumble is Taking Sega into Mobile Games (venturebeat.com): “On my recent trip to the Tokyo Game Show, I was able to spend my pre-show time in the heart of Tokyo on visits to iconic game companies like Sega. At Sega, the company was excited about the upcoming release of the third Sonic movie in theaters – something that has helped revive the franchise in recent years.”
The Toxic Transformation of Warcraft Maker Blizzard (Decoder with Nilay Patel): “Today, I’m talking to Jason Schreier, a Bloomberg journalist and author of the new book Play Nice: The Rise, Fall, and Future of Blizzard Entertainment. If you don’t know Blizzard, you do know its games — the studio behind Warcraft, Diablo, and Overwatch has achieved legendary status over three decades. At the same time, the company has become emblematic of many of gaming’s biggest failings.”
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