The Epic Games Store is heading to iOS and Android so developers can choose how to bring their games to those platforms.
The company broke the news during its annual State of Unreal showcase at GDC 2024, and in a follow-up interview told Game Developer the work-in-progress storefront will allow it to once again bring Fortnite to mobile platforms (on its own terms) while also “giving developers a choice” about how they ship.
“We make multiple games that are really good on mobile. Fortnite is fantastic on mobile. The minute we get the opportunity to do so, we want to [launch it],” said Epic EVP Saxs Persson. “We want to give developers a choice. Fundamentally we believe that every platform should be an open platform and should allow open competition.
“The Epic Games Store is there for people to say, ‘well, we have another way to get our game out quickly’ that has different parameters and different rev share. We hope to be competitive in that sense.”
Perrson believes that having a “consistent” store across mobile and PC will put Epic in a unique position to succeed, and reiterated the mobile storefront will offer developers the same 88/12 revenue share as the PC marketplace. Interested creators will also be able to opt into initiatives like Epic First Run and Now On Epic to claim 100 percent of revenue (for a limited time) via those incentive programs.
There’s no word as to when precisely the Epic Games Store will land on mobile, but the company has pledged to share more information later this year.
In the meantime, we expect Epic to continue locking horns with Apple over the latter’s interpretation of the EU’s Digital Markets Act, which has enabled Epic to bring Fortnite back to iOS in Europe.