Fortnite Banned on Google Play's Store

Today, Epic took a firm yet vocal stance against Apple's 30% cut from all mobile purchases. Getting Fortnite banned and even starting a lawsuit against Apple. Now, Google has banned Fortnite from their stores.

In summary, Epic Games offered 2 options to purchase V-bucks from Fortnite. One was from the mobile store for 30% more than directly from Epic. This caused Apple to ban the game and Epic to not only provide a parody video about the matter but provide legal papers. Now Google has banned the application stating to the Verge:

The open Android ecosystem lets developers distribute apps through multiple app stores. For game developers who choose to use the Play Store, we have consistent policies that are fair to developers and keep the store safe for users. While Fortnite remains available on Android, we can no longer make it available on Play because it violates our policies. However, we welcome the opportunity to continue our discussions with Epic and bring Fortnite back to Google Play.

It's pretty cut and dry, to offer purchases you need to use Google's in-store billing system. You can still download the game but will need to do it through Epic Games whereas with iOS devices it's impossible.

Tim Sweeny of Epic Games has been very vocal about Google , Valve, and Apple's 30% cut.

Sweeney told The Verge in 2018. “Apple, Google, and Android manufacturers make vast, vast profits from the sale of their devices and do not in any way justify the 30 percent cut.” Epic launched a game store on PC in which it takes only 12 percent of revenue as a way to try to encourage a similar change in competitor Valve’s Steam marketplace.

It's not certain if Epic Games will serve legal papers as they did with Apple but we'll have to wait and see.

Adam Siddiqui,
Managing Editor, NoobFeed
Twitter | YouTube | Facebook