Epic Mobile Game Store: Up to 50 Titles by Q4, Free Games Program, Lower Fees for Unreal Developers, More

Epic has slightly improved its Games Store offerings for mobile game developers, promising a reduced commission for Unreal creators, a free games program, self-publishing tools, social features and up to 50 live third-party games by the end of the year.

There was also the obligatory chat from Tim Sweeney at the Unreal Fest event in Seattle, where the Epic CEO continued his fierce criticism of Apple and Google.

During a roundtable after the keynote, Epic Games Store CEO Steve Allison said that as many as 50 third-party games could appear on the mobile Games Store by the fourth quarter. Epic’s “free games” program, the main user acquisition tool for the PC store, will also be available on mobile devices, he said, with self-publishing tools and social features coming soon.

It was also revealed that Ark: Ultimate Mobile Edition will be one of the first third-party titles to appear on the Epic Games Store mobile store. It will be launched there later this year.

The Fortnite creator also announced a new “run anywhere with Epic” program. A reduced licensing fee of 3.5% will now be charged for Unreal Engine games launched on the Epic Games Store before or at the same time as other stores and platforms.

Temporarily waives shipping requirement on iOS due to Apple ““commercially excessive” fee for core technology, but if that changes, Epic said it will notify developers at least four months in advance.

Here’s what Epic Games Store CEO Steve Allison said about the mobile Games Store during a roundtable following yesterday’s Unreal Fest keynote:

“We will launch our first third-party apps during the holiday season,” he said. “We probably expect there will be 10 to 50 of them, and the most important thing will be the implementation of the payment solution, which may postpone some of them to the next months.”

“The free games program will launch in the fourth quarter with the arrival of third-party apps. We’re going to have amazing things for gamers that will also be great for developers because they’ll help us scale it really quickly.”

“Self-publishing tools are also available, which means developers can come to us without any interaction, as is currently the case with PC, probably in the first half of the year, hopefully as close to January as possible.” .

Epic is also working on bringing social and party features to its store, such as in-game chat and cross-platform play, which could roll out “a little later this year,” Allison said. “When all three of these things come together, we’re off to the races.”

And of course, Tim Sweeney took the opportunity to criticize old enemies Apple and Google during the event. “Apple and Google have a completely broken vision of the world, which is to limit what developers can do, to impose more and more restrictions, to prevent things like the metaworld from happening or to tax it to the point where they extract everything and profit from it,” he said during his keynote address.

“We’re at the point now where game development is expensive. That’s a low margin, and game companies suffer from it. Apple and Google earn much more from most games than the developers themselves, without contributing anything in return. This has to change.”

Sweeney later promised that Epic would continue to fight Apple and Google to share their platforms “until final victory.”

Later, during a roundtable on mobile app stores, Sweeney continued his fierce criticism of the tech giants while also addressing Epic’s latest lawsuit. “Google nominally allows competitive stores on Android, but Google is much more insidious than Apple,” he said. “At least Apple tells you – it’s written in the rules: ‘you’re not allowed to compete with us.’ Google says yes, and then does all sorts of deceptive things to block you.

He later accused Apple and Google of “simply ignoring the law” and “being completely disingenuous in interpreting the law.”

“Apple and Google’s bullying and bad practices and trying to add junk fees to things just makes it really hard to compete,” he added. “But yes, this is what we are fighting for and this is what we are fighting for and we will continue to fight until this is resolved.”