Epic Games pulls titles from Samsung Galaxy Store, prepares for EGS mobile launch

Epic picks another target after Apple and Google rows

Epic Games

Things sure aren’t getting boring with Epic Games around: The Fortnite developer won the right to run its own third-party store on iOS in the European Union, scored points during its extensive legal battle with Apple in the US, and overcame the iOS owner’s provocations in the aftermath, but it looks like the company has some more bones to pick.

In a statement on its future mobile strategy, Epic Games said it “will be ending distribution partnerships with mobile stores that serve as rent collectors without competing robustly and serving all developers fairly, even if those stores offer us a special deal for our own games.”

The Samsung Galaxy Store appears to be first in this category. Epic wrote that it would pull its games from the store “in protest of Samsung's anticompetitive decision to block side-loading by default on Samsung Android devices, and as a result of public revelations in the US Epic v Google lawsuit of ongoing Google proposals to Samsung to restrain competition in the market for Android app distribution.”

Aside from picking fights with other tech giants, Epic’s mobile strategy revolves around bringing the Epic Game Store to mobile devices. The EGS will be made available worldwide on Android and inside the European Union on iOS – crucially, with developers not owing a fee for payments processed through third-party processing systems. Should developers decide to use Epic’s payment infrastructure, the company will collect a fee of 12% off the transaction.

In addition to rolling out a mobile version of the EGS, Epic will make its games available on other third-party stores with AltStore on iOS in the EU being the first revealed partner. “We expect to announce support for at least two other third-party stores soon,” Epic added.

Epic Games evidently sees itself as the spearhead of a bigger movement “for the rights of stores to exist and compete fairly on iOS and Android,” and cited the progress made in this direction in recent months with its own legal successes against Google, the EU’s Digital Markets Act, and the Brussels Effect pushing similar legislation in the UK and Japan.

“As operators of the Epic Games Store, we'll take advantage of this opportunity to bring all developers a great deal on our store,” the company summed things up. “And as game developers ourselves, we want to do everything we can to support other stores that strive to bring all developers their own great deals.”