Tim
After a long legal battle between Epic Games and Google, a conclusion that will likely please the game publisher very much is coming to fruition. Thanks to Telefónica, a major carrier in several countries across Europe and Latin America, the Epic Games Store will be preloaded onto Android devices.
If you’ll recall, we saw a judge rule recently that Google would need to allow Epic Games to make its store available for download on Google Play, without any app tax or “scare screens.” Before court rulings, you would likely find Google Play preloaded onto an Android device, as well as the Galaxy app store if you owned a Samsung device. It’s important to note that the majority of Android devices ship with 1 or more app stores out of the box, so the idea that Google was disallowing 3rd-party app stores is false.
For consumers, this is obviously a good thing. At the end of the day, when a consumer needs to download 3rd-party content onto an Android device, they open that device up to potentially harmful software. Always ensure you are downloading content from trusted sources. From Google’s standpoint, though, they lose out on that sense of control as well as revenue. That’s bad for the bottom line, but Google outlines other reasons too.
As for the US, this whole thing is still in the courts. Google appealed the judge’s ruling and we’re still awaiting updates on all of that.
Funny enough, I had a friend over this week and they brought their 10 year old kid with them. The kid wanted to play Fortnite, so I booted it up for the first time in many years. I was really good at Fortnite back in the day, but oh my lord, that game has changed considerably and I was smoked many times. I don’t think you’ll find me playing it ever again, especially on a mobile device. Props to anyone who can hang with the younglings playing that game now.
// The Verge
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