The North American company responds to Epic Games with the same movement as Apple and expels Fortnite from its store for using direct payment methods.
Google has removed Fortnite from the Android Play Store, making it impossible to download it directly from the main terminal applications portal with this operating system. Like Apple, the Mountain View giant expels the most popular video game today for a conflict that has reached a legal scale and that responds to the same reason as the company with the bitten apple: the implementation of direct payments.
Official statement: Google is open to dialogue with Epic Games
According to the criteria of Google and Apple, the possibility of introducing the purchase of content as V-Bucks directly – and therefore cheaper if we buy the V-Bucks directly from Epic Games rather than from the App Store or Google Play – violates the policies of your digital stores.
The 30% commission for each transaction, which is the part that Google and Apple take, is what Epic wants to avoid. That is why Tim Sweeney’s firm intends to eliminate intermediaries and has implemented direct purchase. In the image we see an example of how that translates for the user. In short: saving money.
“The open Android ecosystem gives developers the ability to distribute their apps through multiple application stores,” said a Google representative in light of the expulsion of Fortnite from the Android Play Store. “For game developers who decide to use the Play Store, our policies are consistent and fair with them, they keep the store safe for users,” they add. And they finish: “Fortnite is still available on Android, but we can’t keep it in the Play Store because it violates our rules.” Google leaves the doors open to maintain a dialogue with Google; But not in any way. “We open the opportunity to continue talking with Epic and recover Fortnite on Google Play.”
With different testaments but similar purposes, right now both the App Store and Google Play do not have Fortnite in their stores, which makes it difficult – but not impossible – to download the game through other channels. This is how things are.
