Epic Games Tried To Bribe Google With Stadia Access To Fortnite - Android

Epic Games apparently wanted free access to the Play Store so badly, it more or less attempted to bribe Google by offering to bring Fortnite to Stadia. It seems the plan didn’t work. Fortnite hasn’t made a return to Google Play since it was initially launched there. And it was never available on Stadia. Details [...]

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The post Epic Games Tried To Bribe Google With Stadia Access To Fortnite appeared first on Android Headlines.

Epic Games apparently wanted free access to the Play Store so badly, it more or less attempted to bribe Google by offering to bring Fortnite to Stadia. It seems the plan didn’t work.

Fortnite hasn’t made a return to Google Play since it was initially launched there. And it was never available on Stadia. Details of the offer are coming up in the trial between Apple and Epic Games today. According to IGN reporter Rebekah Valentine on Twitter, someone at the trial admitted to Epic pitching Google the plan to bring Fortnite to both the Play Store and Stadia, if Google allowed the game in the Play Store for free.

Google typically takes a 30% cut of all in-app purchases from apps installed through its store front. And Epic trying to skirt around this licensing fee is what got Fortnite removed from the Play Store.

Epic CEO Tim Sweeney thinks bringing Fortnite to Stadia would be wasted effort

The most interesting part about this past pitch, is the turn of events that’s currently unfolding. Prior to Stadia’s launch, the platform seemed like a perfectly good place to offer Fortnite. After all PUBG is available on Stadia and it’s one of the more free-to-play games. It’s also a big rival to Fortnite.

But just last year Sweeney noted that bringing Fortite to Stadia wouldn’t be worth the effort. Because Stadia didn’t have mass market appeal. It makes you wonder if that response had anything at all to do with the ongoing issue regarding Fortnite on Google’s other platform.

What could have been

Fortnite isn’t everyone’s cup of tea. But it’s still mega popular and continues to pull in players. It’s also one of the top streamed games, with viewer numbers consistently well over 100,000. At the time of writing it’s sitting ta 169,000 viewers on Twitch.

The point is that Fortnite on Stadia would have been a pretty big deal. It would have been a big win for Google and could easily have drawn in more people to play. Based on the game’s popularity alone. But in the long run it probably wasn’t worth it for Google if it meant cutting Epic loose from Play Store licensing fees.

So players are left with wondering what could have been. You can still play Fortnite on Android devices if you want access to the game while mobile. But you’ll need to install the game from Epic’s own launcher. Which you get from its own website.

The post Epic Games Tried To Bribe Google With Stadia Access To Fortnite appeared first on Android Headlines.