Epic is incredibly tiring. After literally years of suing every mobile affiliate company it could think of, including Google, Apple, and Samsung, claiming that users should have the right to install whatever software (and whatever app store) they want, it now preloads its own software Epic Games Store and accesses the ubiquitous Fortnite on mobile phones.
The Epic Games Store comes preloaded on Android phones sold on Telefónica for customers in the United Kingdom, Spain, Germany and Spanish-speaking countries in Latin America. The press release announcement did not specify which one countries, but Telefónica and its subsidiaries and partners currently operate in Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Panama, Peru, Puerto Rico and Venezuela. Telefónica claims a total of 392 million customers.
According to the press release, gamers will be able to “download more easily Fortnite, Fall guys And Rocket League sideways move as well as third-party games in the future.” Which in any case implies that the complete Fortnite game itself (currently a 15GB pack on my phone) won’t be completely pre-installed from the start.
This is clearly a win for Epic. Getting the big hit Battle Royale Fortnite on phones, and doing so without going through the iOS App Store and the Google Play Store and including them in the microtransaction revenue deal, was the whole point of the initial tantrum lawsuit in 2020. Now with a little extra hassle , not only will Epic get Fortnite on millions of new devices, without side-loading.
Essentially, the Epic Games Store is installed on those phones without you even having to ask permission from the people who buy the phones. Yay?
This deal isn’t really special. After all, Epic once had a similar sweetheart deal with Samsung, openly advertising what you could get Fortnite on Samsung phones through the Galaxy Store, even if it wasn’t available on Google Play. That was before Epic threw another tantrum – it’s now suing Samsung.
But I feel it is my duty to remind millions of Android phone users every day Fortnite players – two groups I’m a part of, I’ll point out, I’m level 34 on the current battle pass – which Epic wants you to think isn’t like all the other international megacorps.
Recall that Epic “trolled” Apple with a parody of the famous 1984 ad, involving players of a free video game to “join the fight” against Apple. “Join the battle” between a $32 billion company and a $3.7 trillion company, arguing over who gets to keep $3 of your $10 V-Bucks purchase. Uhm.
And Epic started this fight for freedom allegedly on behalf of phone users, who it said deserved the right to install whatever software they wanted outside of an app store ecosystem. An argument that did not apply to game consoles such as the Xbox, PlayStation and Switch, which essentially have the same design and the same profit sharing.
SONY
I wonder if that lack of enthusiasm for suing Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo has anything to do with Epic’s very close relationship with those companies. Epic partners to sell Fortnite bundles with all three of these consoles, and it’s apparently no problem with the profit sharing arrangement for V-Bucks and other in-game items, as long as you’re holding a controller instead of a phone.
I wonder if Epic has done the math, calculated the odds of forcing console makers to open up to an unlimited number of third-party game stores, and decided that it’s not worth it to spend months or years accessing those platforms lose while the dust settles in court.
Here’s something else I’m wondering. Android lets you delete apps that come preloaded on your phone… at least some of the time. I can delete Amazon Shopping from my Samsung phone, but some apps, like Google’s Chrome, I can only “disable,” and they’ll be back in a second or two if I enable them again. Other apps, like the completely useless Samsung Bixby Vision, can’t even be disabled.
The Epic Games Store and Fortnite are definitely something that many people want to have on their phone. But many people don’t, or at least don’t care. Pre-install a game store available as a separate manual download on a phone’s limited storage space is by definition bloatware.
When Epic has its Games Store and has access to Fortnite will it remember its claim that it is fighting for players’ rights, and allow them to ban these apps from the phones they bought? Or will it instead decide that it’s as essential as Bixby Vision, and the ‘delete’ button will be conspicuously absent?
