Epic caves in and brings Fortnite to Google Play

Epic Games has given into Google’s wishes to put the battle royale game Fortnite on the Google Play Store.

It’s been nearly one and a half years since Epic Games brought Fortnite to Android devices, but the developer has remained adamant that the game should be allowed to exist outside of Google’s ecosystem.

With Google taking a 30% cut from every purchase made through their own storefront, Epic Games instead decided to allow would-be players to sideload the Fortnite Android port through a proprietary application on Epic’s website. After 18 months, Epic has given in.

“After 18 months of operating Fortnite on Android outside of the Google Play Store, we’ve come to a basic realization,” Epic Games announced.

“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.”

While Epic has carved into Google’s will, the company will still proceed to support the standalone download on their own services for those who want Epic to get all of the money you spend on it.

For more Fortnite news, there’s a Deadpool thing happening? I don’t know, I’m not paying much attention.