Fortnite
You may not like Fortnite, but you must respect what Epic Games does to fight the ‘status quo’ of giant monopolies that pay too much for access to games. First, to combat Steam’s 30% cut in game revenue on PC, Epic simply created its own game store that only takes a 12% cut.
Now? Epic has probably made its bravest move yet, and have come up with a system where you can buy Fortnite V-Bucks directly from Epic while on Android or iOS, thanks to Google and Apple’s 30% cut on microtransactions on the site to get.
How do they do it? I have no idea, and if I had to guess it, Apple and Google would figure out what shifts to shut down to shut this down ASAP, but the way it works in practice is pretty hilarious.
Fortnite
Just Fortnite out tells you that you can spend $ 10 for $ 1000 V if you want to use Apple Pay, or you can spend $ 8 instead if you use “Epic Direct Payment” which gets around the 30% fee, and some of those savings are passed directly to the buyer.
Epic is made explicit in that it effectively hits Apple and Google in the face and challenges them to a duel:
“Currently, when you use Apple and Google payment options, Apple and Google earn a 30% fee, and the price drop up to 20% does not apply. If Apple or Google reduce their payment fees in the future, Epic will pass on the savings to you. “
Apple was recently pressured in Congress about the 30% cut they are taking, but nothing really came of it, and there do not seem to be any plans at some point to change that. Epic’s fight with Apple and Google is different than it’s war on Steam. Although it can set up its own game store on PC, it can not … create its own app store or phone OS (well, not yet). It’s unclear what Epic thinks they did here to make this ‘legal’ in the app store, but again, I would expect it to be closed pretty quickly with some jargon-filled explanation given. And I’m sure Epic is ready for it, and has some sort of answer planned as a next step (I wonder if this is a precursor to a legal battle). But right now you can start up Fortnite and see this “do you want the more expensive or cheaper V-bucks?” interface live no. So shop with a discount if you can.
This is a very wild move by Epic, and I’ll be sucking popcorn as I wait for Apple and Google to respond.
Follow me on Twitter, YouTube en Instagram. Picking up my sci-fi novels Herokiller en Herokiller 2, and read my first series, The Earthborn Trilogy, which is also on audiobook.
