Having successfully arrived on iOS and Android devices through a combination of relentless legal activity and new EU regulations, the Epic Games Store is ready to start tempting users away from Apple and Google's digital storefronts. and, in news that probably won't surprise anyone, it plans to do so by giving away free games.
Weekly giveaways, along with subsidized sales vouchers and a rewards program, have long been Epic's preferred method of attracting customers to its glacially evolving PC store, after its various exclusivity deals caused more frustration than jubilation among the players. So the news that it plans to repeat the strategy on mobile devices is not a big revelation.
But it has now been officially confirmed by Epic Games Store general manager Steve Allison, who, speaking during a panel discussion during this week's Unreal Fest (thanks mobilegamer.biz), explained: “The free games program will launch in the fourth quarter together with the [first] Third-party apps will appear and we will have some amazing things for players that will also be amazing for developers because they will help us scale very quickly.”
In total, Epic hopes to have “between 10 and 50” third-party apps available in its mobile store by this “holiday season,” and Ark: Ultimate Mobile Edition has already been confirmed as one of those games. The biggest potential hurdle, according to Allison, is “implementing a payment solution, which could delay some of these payments in the coming months.”
Epic, which announced it would lay off “about 830 employees” last September because it “had been spending a lot more money than we made,” has struggled to see a return on its PC store despite its huge monetary investment. Last year, it admitted that the Epic Games Store was still not profitable five years after its launch, and it's unclear if that situation has changed. Speaking earlier this week, Epic CEO Tim Sweeney touted the fact that Fortnite and the Epic Games Store have “reached new records in concurrency and success,” but made no mention of their financial gains.
Epic initially announced it would launch a mobile version of its store in February, after Apple confirmed it would comply with the EU Digital Markets Act that requires it to allow downloading and alternative marketplaces on its devices. Those plans finally came to fruition in August when the Epic Games Store launched for iOS in Europe and Android devices worldwide, although only first-party titles, including Fortnite, are currently available. It also hopes to launch a UK version in 2025.
Since then, Epic has continued its barrage of legal action against app store competitors, most recently targeting Samsung and Google for using an “Auto Blocker” setting that users must disable to install Epic Games and Fortnite.