Fortnite’s Google Play 30% Exemption Denied

No developers out there are happy at the massive 30% cut that Google wants to take of their game sales when the games are placed on the platform. This is why some game devs have been bypassing the Google Play store. Epic Games wanted to get it’s massively popular Fortnite on the Google Play Store and had submitted the game in hopes of getting an exception from the 30% Google fee.

Unsurprisingly, Google declined that request. Google’s refusals to wave the 30% fee has led Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney to call the Play Store revenue sharing model illegal. Epic currently allows Android users to get Fortnite by sideloading the game directly from its store.

This move means that Epic doesn’t have to share any of the money it makes with Google. The search giant pointed out that Epic listed Forntite on the iOS App Store despite Apple charing a standard 30% cut there as well reports Neowin. Sweeny outlines his case below:

“Epic doesn’t seek a special exception for ourselves; rather we expect to see a general change to smartphone industry practices in this regard.

We have asked that Google not enforce its publicly stated expectation that products distributed through Google Play use Google’s payment service for in-app purchase. We believe this form of tying of a mandatory payment service with a 30% fee is illegal in the case of a distribution platform with over 50% market share.”