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Fortnite Battle Royale launched on Android this week as a beta, starting on Samsung smartphones and then it will be available everywhere else in the coming weeks. But it’s not coming to the Google Play Store, and this is because Epic Games believes that Google is “greedy” with the revenue sharing amount that all Google Play apps and games have to do. Google gets 30-percent of all revenue from purchasing an app or game, and from in-app purchases. Epic Games believes that it can keep that cost, to help build out the game some more and add more servers when it needs too. Versus giving that money to Google. Now, Sensor Tower believes that around $50 million will be lost by Google on the fact that Fortnite is not coming to the Google Play Store.
For the past few months, Fortnite has taken the gaming industry by storm. It has launched on all the popular platforms from PlayStation 4 to Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, PC and even iOS. It’s the most popular game out right now, and Epic Games is making a fortune on the game. This is due to the in-app purchases that are included in Fortnite. Players are able to buy different things to make their character stand out, and kids are spending like crazy right now. Now if Google is going to miss out on around $50 million due to Fortnite not hitting the Play Store, that means that Fortnite is going to make around $160 million from in-app purchases. Which is no small feat, and that is just for the remainder of 2018 – about three months. Nevermind the amount it might make in 2019 and beyond.
This is one of the pitfalls of Android being an open-source platform. It allows companies to skip the Google Play Store, and offer the app from another source – in this case, Epic Games’ website. It means that companies can get around Google’s revenue sharing rules, and that could be a bad thing for the future, for Google, especially if Epic Games is successful with this Fortnite launch on Android.