Fortnite: Battle Royale is an utmost popular game which recently surpassed revenue of more $1 billion USD. Epic Games, the maker of Fortnite are planning to release the game on Android platform which means, there could be billion more potential customers who would like to play the game. The users would head to the Google Play Store but they won’t find it there but why?
According to Epic CEO Tim Sweeney, Fortnite: Battle Royale will not be available on Play Store and instead, it will be available on Epic Games website where the developers will provide a free-to-play game installer after the Android version releases in a month or so. Now the question arises is Why? And If Google should be worried about such a predicament since Fornite is an uber-popular game similar to Pokemon Go and PUBG.
Tim answered the question on a Q+A arranged by Eurogamer where he stated that his company is looking forward to skipping Google’s 30 percent distribution charges that it collects from the developers and he termed it as “disproportionate to the cost of services these stores perform, such as payment processing, download bandwidth, and customer service”.
On the contrary, Google Play Store offers an unprecedented and incomparable exposure to the developers for their apps and services. Although Fortnite has an immense following wherein millions of people are waiting for its Android release and they will eventually find and install the game even if it’s not on Play Store. But this move will also introduce issues where people actually came to search for it on Play Store but couldn’t find it.
The absence of the game from Play Store could create tension by causing less visibility and fewer converts for the developers but then, Epic CEO isn’t worried at all and in fact, he is confident. He added that Epic Games will look forward to collaborating with Google in the future.
Here’s a list of some of the Android smartphones that will support Fortnite: Battle Royale. The game is expected to be released exclusively with Samsung Galaxy Note 9 for 30 days after which, the game will be available for public download in other supported smartphones. Just in case if you want to check your compatibility, here’s a list of supported Android phones.
- Google Pixel 2 / Google Pixel 2 XL
- Sony Xperia XZ / Xperia XZs / Xperia XZ1
- Huawei Mate 9 / Mate 9 Pro
- Huawei Mate 10 / Mate 10 Pro / Mate 10 Lite
- Huawei P10 / P10 Plus / P10 Lite
- Huawei P9 / P9 Lite
- Huawei P8 Lite (2017)
- Samsung Galaxy Note 8 / Samsung Galaxy Note 9 (2018)
- Samsung Galaxy S8 / S8+
- Samsung Galaxy S9 / S9+
- Samsung Galaxy S7 / S7 Edge
- Samsung Galaxy S8 / S8+
- Samsung Galaxy XA1 / Ultra / Plus
- Samsung Galaxy A5 (2017) / A7 (2017)
- Samsung Galaxy J7 Prime / Pro
- Razer Phone
- LG G6 / V30
- Motorola Moto E4 PLus
- Motorola Moto G5 / G5 Plus / G5S
- Moto Z2 Plus
- Nokia 6
