
Fortnite on Android will bypass Google Play - e1ven
https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2018/08/fortnite-on-android-may-drive-its-battle-bus-past-googles-30-cut/
======
seibelj
Having only one app store allowed on a device is anti-competitive and is an
area where I would approve regulators forcing changes. The fact that Apple has
exclusive right to approve what I can install, and then extracts monopoly rent
on top of depriving me of software, should be banned.

~~~
eridius
Banned on what grounds? Apple doesn't have a monopoly, so there's no
anticompetitive angle here.

~~~
seibelj
They have a monopoly on what can be installed on my phone, and censor what
gets into the app store, so they are therefore censoring me.

~~~
kup0
This only matters if they're the only platform available. But, they're not.
You can use Android, its forks, or otherwise. While one can be philosophically
opposed to their walled-garden, there is zero legal ground to stand on to
regulate Apple in this regard when they are not a monopoly as defined by law.

They have the right to control what is available in their own app store,
whether we like it or not.

Calling their control "monopoly" and "censorship" really dilutes the actual
meaning of both terms

~~~
fulafel
Sounds like you are talking cross purposes. S/He argues for changing the law
and you are explaining the current law.

~~~
kup0
That wasn't very clear from the original posts, as they discussed anti-
competitive behavior and regulators, not new legislation to be written. To me
this implied a desire for them to be regulated under current law, which may
have been my mistake in reading it.

It makes more sense read with new legislation being the intent, so you have a
point.

That said, that type of regulation seems overly heavy-handed IMHO, and I'm
typically not an anti-regulation type of person.

------
kjhughes
In an interview [1], Tim Sweeney, Epic Games CEO, addressed why they opted to
bypass Google Play:

 _GamesBeat: Do you see a reason not to put it on Google Play right now? Is
that something that would happen in the future?_

 _Sweeney: There are two reasons for what we’re doing. First, we want to have
a direct relationship with our customers wherever we can. On open platforms
like PC and Android, it’s possible for them to get the software direct from
us. We can be in contact with them and not have a third-party distributor in
between._

 _The second motivation is the economics of the store ecosystem as it exists
right now. There’s typically a 30 /70 split, and from the 70 percent, the
developer pays all the costs of developing the game, operating it, marketing
it, acquiring users and everything else. For most developers that eats up the
majority of their revenue. We’re trying to make our software available to
users in as economically efficient a way as possible. That means distributing
the software directly to them, taking payment through Mastercard, Visa,
Paypal, and other options, and not having a store take 30 percent._

 _If you look at it, the stores on the smartphone platforms actually do very
little. They’ll put ads up in front of your game. When you search for Fortnite
on iOS you’ll often get PUBG or Minecraft ads. Whoever bought that ad in front
of us is the top result when searching for Fortnite. It’s just a bad
experience. Why not just make the game available direct to users, instead of
having the store get between us and our customers and inject all kinds of
cruft like that? It’s a general criticism I have of the smartphone platforms
right now._

[1] [https://venturebeat.com/2018/08/03/tim-sweeney-epics-ceo-
on-...](https://venturebeat.com/2018/08/03/tim-sweeney-epics-ceo-on-fortnite-
on-android-skipping-google-play-and-the-open-metaverse/view-all/)

~~~
dingaling
I wish more organisations just put an APK up on their website. Whatsapp does
and it's a dawdle to set-up a relative's phone without having to bother with a
Google account and Play Store etc

~~~
fjsolwmv
It's great for legit companies, but it also opens the door to the far greater
number of malware providers, as seen throughout the history of Windows.

~~~
walterbell
Is there APK signing?

------
tapoxi
Oh boy, that's gonna be a _lot_ of people enabling the installation of APKs
from untrusted sources. I can't see this working well from a security
perspective.

~~~
dguido
Not entirely true!

In order to play Fortnite, you're going to need an up to date phone with
modern graphics hardware, and that means it will probably be running Android
8. On Android 8, "install unknown sources" is a per-app permission which means
only the Epic Launcher will be able to install other apps.

I think there is close to zero security risk to this strategy assuming the
above.

~~~
tedunangst
Are users capable of playing the game the only users who will attempt to
install it? "Fortnite for Android 7" sounds like something users will jump
through hoops to install given they've already read something about hoops and
Android 8.

~~~
SketchySeaBeast
And the other 28 rip offs on the appstore isn't going to help anything.

------
pnloyd
This probably will rub Google the wrong way.. I wonder how many millions they
will lose out on because of this.

Maybe they should introduce some special reduced fee teirs for the ultra high
volume customers, as a precaution against this becoming a trend.

On the other hand fortnight is probably the only app where it's users want it
so bad they will be willing to do just about any procedure to get it on the
phones. Everything else has competitors on the Play store.

~~~
stefan_
A precaution against this becoming a trend? There is no trend, there has been
a massively huge tsunami wave and it's already passed through, and now the
"Play Store" is a barren wasteland of utter crap loaded with ads and sending
as much data as they managed to cajole you into agreeing for to a bunch of
third parties. But every app is free!

30% was a lazy choice to begin with, and look at what it got them. It's not
even the huge tax, the fact that your app will show up alongside a bunch of
Fordnite and Fnortnite scams would be enough to scare me away.

------
guelo
Google punished again for having a more open platform. With this and EU's
lawsuit attacking Google for allowing other OEMs to sell Android with
conditions, Google's incentive is to copy Apple and lock everything down and
make it all proprietary.

~~~
scarface74
That’s not what happened. Google was punished for not allowing manufacturers
to sell separate products that were Android forks if they sold official Google
versions of Android.

On the scale of 1-10 of openness, that’s a -100.

------
Yhippa
I've had to disinfect so many of my friends computers because they downloaded
VLC media player from a website that looks darn close to something "official"
but wasn't. Even with the one-time perms to allow this specific app to be
installed from outside the GPS I can definitely see this being a headache for
not only Google because of the high profile and popularity of this game but
also Epic. Good luck to everyone involved.

------
seanalltogether
I feel like part of the 30% tax that app stores extract is based on how easy
it is for users to simply buy what they want with money that's probably
already in their account. Most of the money that I've spent on apple and
google apps comes from gift cards. If I had fortnite on my android phone, and
considered making an impulse buy, and was required to put in credit card info,
I might reconsider the purchase.

------
ocdtrekkie
Tim Sweeney has always been a very outspoken critic of app stores. He's
famously rattled his saber about the Windows Store every chance he gets,
despite the fact that outside Store installations will never realistically,
ever go away.

So an opposition to the Play Store on moral grounds is pretty much what I'd
expect here from him. I'm guessing the 30% cut is just the cash incentive he
needed to convince the rest of his team that this was the right way to go.

~~~
MikusR
That would explay why his company has its own app store that until recently
also was 70/30 split (now 88/12)

------
ezoe
This is how it should be.

Monopolized software distribution platform is bad for so many reasons.

And for anyone claiming that this is bad for security, blame Google and Apple
who don't support the other way of secure software distribution and try to
lock-in to their proprietary locked-in platform for the greed.

Also, Don't use Android or iPhone in the first place because it's so
restricted, unsecure, and cannot be trusted one bit.

~~~
mikelward
It sounds like you're not familiar with Android. It was always possible, but
it's easier since Oreo.

[https://developer.android.com/distribute/marketing-
tools/alt...](https://developer.android.com/distribute/marketing-
tools/alternative-distribution)
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Android_app_stores](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Android_app_stores)

------
rocky1138
Is there not a FOSS store on Android that provides app signing and doesn't
charge anything? This is an opportunity for Fortnite's creators to create
their own store which then installs their app.

~~~
stefan_
Well the FOSS store is a FOSS store because it only has FOSS. They have an
emphasis on reproducible builds so you know what you are getting.

[https://f-droid.org](https://f-droid.org)

~~~
rocky1138
Yeah this is great, thanks.

------
zelon88
I support Epic Games's decision. 30% is insanity, and Google Play needs to
face regulatory scrutiny from government.

------
econ4all
Between this and their main rival reaching a trillion dollar valuation would
someone explain to me what the EU fine was for?

~~~
superfrank
I am not a lawyer, but I believe anti-trust lawsuits often revolve around what
the average consumer can do/is aware of.

In Europe, Android dominates the smartphone OS market with ~75% market share
and most come pre-bundled with Google software. With names like "messages",
"photos", or "calendar" it's not really clear that these are Google products
or that they can be changed. You basically end up with most of that market
share using Google software without even understanding that they have a
choice.

I believe the logic behind the fine was very similar to the USA vs Microsoft
anti trust suit
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Cor...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Corp.#Judgment)).

To put it in perspective though, the fine Google received was less than 2
weeks worth of revenue and will probably be lowered if they appeal. It's not
really as big a deal as the media made it out to be.

I'm not saying I agree with the fine, but I do understand how, in a certain
light, the EU see Google's practice as a bit monopolistic.

~~~
econ4all
It's closer to a 50/50 split than you make it sound, and the difference
between this the microsoft case is that Windows had >95% of the market and not
to mention that OEMs don't need google's permission to roll out their own OS
(see the Chinese mobile market) also consumers would need those fundamental
apps to make the phone usable similar to the apps that come with iOS which
contrary to Android's are the defaults forever and can't be replaced.

~~~
superfrank
> It's closer to a 50/50 split than you make it sound

No, Android OS is at 74.2% of the EU market.

It's closer to 50/50 in the US, but in the EU and worldwide Android dominates
the market and will probably continue to rise as Huawei continues to expand.

Multiple sources for the 74.2% number:

[http://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-
share/mobile/europe](http://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/mobile/europe)

[https://www.mobileeurope.co.uk/press-wire/ios-and-android-
ga...](https://www.mobileeurope.co.uk/press-wire/ios-and-android-gain-
smartphone-market-share-in-europe-as-windows-enters-tailspin)

------
gonvaled
what with ios?

~~~
mcraiha
_If you could have done this on iOS, would you have?_

 _Yes._

[https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2018-fortn...](https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2018-fortnite-
on-android-doesnt-use-google-play-confirmed)

------
rconti
God, I hate unnecessarily obscure headlines like this.

~~~
dang
We changed it.

