Epic unveils bold plan to pay penalties levied by Apple to tempt developers onto its mobile store
Epic Games has announced a fresh push to convince app developers to launch their games on the company’s fledgling mobile store, which company boss Tim Sweeney has admitted will be costly.
The Epic Games Store for mobile will today add its first swathe of third-party games, beyond the company’s core offering of Fortnite, Fall Guys and Rocket League Sideswipe.
19 titles have made today’s line-up on Android – including Bloons TD 6 and Dungeon of the Endless: Apogee, which are the first titles to be offered in the store’s previously-confirmed free games program.
16 of these will also be available via the Epic Games Store on iOS, where it is offered within the European Union. More will be added weekly, typically on Tuesdays.
Initially, Epic Games will offer free titles on a monthly basis, with its initial duo available until 20th February. A weekly schedule of free games will then kick in later this year.
Epic Games has clearly found it difficult to tempt mobile developers to its storefront, which was originally set to welcome third-party games last year and reach 100m installs by the end of 2024 – something it fell short of, only reaching around 30m instead.
The company admits that none of the 100 highest-grossing app developers are yet willing to also distribute their game on the storefront – something it blames on Apple’s controversial Core Technology Fee (CTF) policy.
Epic to pay developers to counter Apple’s “insidious design”
What is the CTF policy? In a nutshell, iOS developers who want to launch games outside Apple’s official App Store must pay a €0.50 fee for every install of its games – even via the App Store itself – after the company’s first 1m installs. It’s a policy Epic Games and others have criticised as prohibitive of any real competition for the App Store, as no major app developer will want to penalise itself for launching elsewhere.
Today, Epic Games has announced it will cover the CTF for games that are offered as part of its store’s free games program, for the program’s first 12 months.
“It’s uneconomical and will cause us to lose a lot of money, [but] we feel like we have to break the logjam there,” Epic Games boss Tim Sweeney said in a roundtable interview attended by Eurogamer. “[The CTF] is an absolutely insidious design, deviously constructed and deviously defended, and its the most critical thing the European regulators will need to overturn.”
“We might run into serious financial problems after a couple more decades of this”
Asked whether Epic Games had the financial clout to continue the fight long-term, Sweeney said the company was in it for the long-haul.
“We might run into serious financial problems after a couple more decades of this, but we’re determined to fight this out,” he said. “I expect large parts of this struggle will go on over the rest of decade, and we’re fully committed to it and breaking through.
