Epic Games: Free apps are now also available in the Mobile Store

Epic Games is expanding its Epic Games Store for mobile devices with Android or iOS: for the first time, apps and games from independent developers can now be downloaded via the store. This is an important step towards a real alternative to the Google Play Store or the Apple App Store.

The Epic Games Store has been available for mobile devices since last summer, but until now only a few first-party titles such as "Fortnite" were available there. This means that the Epic Store on mobile devices has so far been more of an Epic launcher for selected Epic games.

With the latest update, however, the range now includes almost 20 games from independent developers that can be purchased in the Epic Games Store on Android and iOS. There is no difference in price for users for most titles: "Samorost 2" and "Out There: Omega Edition" cost the same in the Epic Store as in the Play Store, "Evoland 2" is even cheaper due to a discount in the Google Store.

Regular free games

Nevertheless, Epic still has an ace up its sleeve: As on the desktop, free games are to be distributed regularly in Epic's mobile store. This starts with the roguelike mobile game "Dungeon of the Endless: Apogee", which every user of the app can currently install for free. The game usually costs 8 euros in the Play Store and App Store.

The next game to be given away is the popular tower defense game "Bloons TD 6". Initially, Epic plans to give away free games on a monthly basis, before offering a free title every week later in the year.

Epic pays core technology fee

According to Epic, the fact that the offer is still quite small is also due to the behavior of Google and Epic, which deterred users and developers with warnings and restrictions. Epic cites as an example the core technology fee that developers have to pay to Apple if their app offered outside the App Store is downloaded more than 1 million times per year.

In order to convince more developers to also offer their apps in the Epic Store, Epic wants to pay this fee for one year for participating developers. Another detail shows that the deterrent measures have been effective so far: according to Epic, not a single one of the 100 top-selling mobile game developers has been persuaded to offer their app in the Epic Games Store.

(dahe)