It’s undeniable that the Epic Games Store has had a big impact on the gaming industry. Before EGS, almost every game store took a 30 percent cut from every purchase. Epic challenged this head-on by taking only a 12 percent cut and additional benefits if you use their own Unreal Engine to make the game. This forced Valve’s hand to reduce the cut to 25 percent for high selling titles. However, indie and other less than super successful games will still pay the 30 percent cut.
This forced many developers and publishers to go for the Epic Store. The company also provided additional financial benefits for its exclusivity deals. However, Epic Games themselves have become the victim of the 30 percent industry cut. Even in the smartphone industry, apps pay a 30 percent cut if they are purchased from the Google Play Store. Epic had previously stopped its release of Fortnite on the Play Store as Epic wanted a better cut.
After a year-long battle, Epic Games finally gave up and decided to release the game on the Play Store anyway, as Google didn’t show any sign of surrendering. The publisher said in a statement given to Polygon that Google uses unfair practices in order to force companies to use the Play Store. According to Epic, Google uses ‘repetitive security pop-ups’ and names third party software as malware, which scares the user from downloading it. Some apps have been downright blocked if they are downloaded outside of the Play Store.
"Google puts software downloadable outside of Google Play at a disadvantage, through technical and business measures such as scary, repetitive security pop-ups for downloaded and updated software, restrictive manufacturer and carrier agreements and dealings, Google public relations characterizing third party software sources as malware, and new efforts such as Google Play Protect to outright block software obtained outside the Google Play store," the statement to Polygon reads.
"Because of this, we’ve launched Fortnite for Android on the Google Play Store. We’ll continue to operate the Epic Games App and Fortnite outside of Google Play, too. We hope that Google will revise its policies and business dealings in the near future, so that all developers are free to reach and engage in commerce with customers on Android and in the Play Store through open services, including payment services, that can compete on a level playing field."
So what do you think? Do you think Google Play store should take a smaller cut? Or do you think that 30 percent industry cut is fair? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below.
