Fortniteis one of the most popular games in the battle royale genre and many players enjoy its inventive gameplay, challenges, and events. The success ofFortnitehas been reflected in impressive player countsand the game has managed to carve out a large audience. However, the game and the company behind it, Epic Games, have entered a legal battle with Google because of disagreements about the way the Play Store operates.
The issue began whenFortniteattempted to bypass the 30 percent cut that the Play Store takes from every sale on its service. The team at Epic Games enabled an option to do a direct payment and claimed that the saving was being returned to consumers. As a result, of this practice,Google removed theFortniteapplication from its servicesas it breached its terms of the agreement. Epic Games is now responding with a legal case that appears to challenge the monopolies that exist in the app market.
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Epic Games claim that the Google Play Store has a monopoly on the android market because other services that allow users to downloadFortniteare hard to install on devices. Few would disagree with this claim, and the setup for Android devices makes it easy to use the Google-based services and considerably harder to use other third party services. However, given the fact thatFortnitedid undercut the existing agreement with the service, this reaction may be essentially putting the blame back on the host of the application. With this in mind, it will be interesting to see what agreement is reached.
The two corporations will likely reach an agreement that allowsFortniteto return to the Play Store, rather than either party making significant changes. It would be unlikely that Google would allow competition into a market it has a monopoly on and equally Epic Games will not want to completely sever the relationship as it would lead to financial loss. With this in mind, the lawsuit may be a bargaining chip rather than a serious attempt to change the market place for mobile gaming. Due to the corporate nature of this legal battle, some feel it is best not totake Google or Epic Games' side.
While there is a small chance that lasting changes could come as a result of this legal action, it seems more likely that normality will return soon. This will disappoint players who believeEpic Games are right to take fire at application services, but a significant change would take years of change and planning unless Epic plans to enter the market.
Fortniteis free-to-play on Mobile, PC, PS4, Switch, and Xbox One, with PS5 and Xbox Series X versions in development.
