Though Fortnite has been available on Android for over a year and a half, fans who wished to play Epic’s battle royale game on their Android smartphones had to navigate to Epic’s website in order to download the APK directly. This was due to Epic disagreeing with the Google Play Store’s terms and conditions, which would give the search giant 30% of every pound that Epic made. Finally however, it would seem as though Epic has conceded the stand-off, as Fortnite is now available on the Google Play Store.

When asked by Polygon why it had decided to change its mind when it comes to operating on the Google Play Store, the company stated that “after 18 months of operating Fortnite on Android outside of the Google Play Store, we’ve come to a basic realization: Google puts software downloadable outside of Google Play at a disadvantage, through technical and business measures such as scary, repetitive security pop-ups for downloaded and updated software, restrictive manufacturer and carrier agreements and dealings, Google public relations characterizing third party software sources as malware, and new efforts such as Google Play Protect to outright block software obtained outside the Google Play store.”

Due to these ‘difficulties’ that Epic claims to have been facing, they’ve “launched Fortnite for Android on the Google Play Store,” though “we’ll continue to operate the Epic Games App and Fortnite outside of Google Play, too.”

Despite conceding the battle to Google, Epic hasn’t given up on the war against the ‘Google Tax’, stating that “we hope that Google will revise its policies and business dealings in the near future, so that all developers are free to reach and engage in commerce with customers on Android and in the Play Store through open services, including payment services, that can compete on a level playing field.”

The Epic Games Store, of course, is well known for offering its developers much friendlier terms when it comes to storefront cuts and commissions. It is therefore understandable that the Fortnite developer would wish to see a similar treatment for its own titles. Of course, one could argue that Epic isn't in dire need of that extra revenue…but then again neither is Google. It’ll be interesting to see how this disagreement continues to unfold in the future, and ultimately, who will emerge victorious.

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KitGuru says: Whose side do you agree with? Do you think Epic Games are genuine in their sentiments? Do you agree that Epic Games practice what they preach? Let us know down below.

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