Epic Games will reportedly add third-party games to its marketplace app on Android globally and on Apple iOS in the European Union.
“The news is out,” the company said in a Thursday (Jan. 23) post on social platform X. “We’re bringing a bunch of awesome new third-party games to the Epic Games Store on mobile but ran into a few bugs that we’re working through now. We’ll provide an update once the games are live and ready to play!”
The news is out! We’re bringing a bunch of awesome new third-party games to the Epic Games Store on mobile but ran into a few bugs that we’re working through now.
We’ll provide an update once the games are live and ready to play!
— Epic Games Store (@EpicGames) January 23, 2025
Reuters reported Thursday that Epic Games will add third-party games to its own marketplace on the two operating systems.
The videogame company launched its mobile game store in 2024 to avoid fees imposed by Apple’s App Store and Google’s Play Store when making in-app purchases, according to the report.
By the end of 2024, Epic Games’ mobile store reached 29 million users, the report said.
When announcing the addition of third-party games Thursday, Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney said the company aims to build “a single cross-platform store,” per the report.
“We are opening up the Epic Games Store to mobile games from third parties, starting with a small catalog and expanding over time to a very big catalog,” Sweeney said, according to the report.
Epic debuted its mobile app store that challenges Apple’s App Store in August after a yearslong legal battle and the implementation of new legislation in Europe that redrew the competitive map, PYMNTS reported at the time.
In an Aug. 15 blog post announcing the launch of the Epic Games Store, Epic said it was continuing to fight in courts and work with regulators around the globe to eliminate “anticompetitive terms” imposed by Apple and Google.
“We’re launching on iOS devices in the European Union thanks to the Digital Markets Act, but Apple is still blocking all other iOS users outside of Europe from accessing Fortnite and Epic Games Store for iOS,” the company said in its post. “For now, the process of installing the Epic Games Store on iOS and Android is lengthy due to Apple and Google introducing intentionally poor-quality install experiences laden by multiple steps, confusing device settings and scare screens.”
