A flurry of new third party games have been added to Epic’s mobile Games Store today. Epic has also said it’ll cover the costs of Apple’s Core Technology Fee for developers in its free games program.
Epic told Eurogamer and The Verge that 19 third party games will be added to the Epic Games Store on Android, which is available worldwide. 16 new titles are also being added to the iOS store, which is only available in the EU. [Update: Epic has told us that after some issues it’s actually 17 new games being added on Android and 15 new games on iOS]
The games include Bloons TD 6 and Dungeon of the Endless: Apogee, which are also the two first completely free games to be offered on mobile as part of the free games program Epic announced in October. Separately, Playdigious announced that Shapez, Cultist Simulator and Evoland 2 would be coming to the store too.
Like the free games program it has been running on its PC Games Store for years, the mobile offering is designed to tempt players over to the Epic store from the incumbent iOS and Android offerings. There will also be new free games offered weekly, starting later this year.
Epic also plans to cover the cost of Apple’s Core Technology Fee for developers in its free games program for the first 12 months, according to the reports on Eurogamer and The Verge. As a reminder, Apple’s Core Technology Fee charges €0.50 for every download through an alternative store after the app’s first 1m installs, and has been likened by many to Unity’s now-deceased Runtime Fee.
Epic reportedly said that none of the 100 highest-grossing app developers have signed up to release games on the mobile Epic Games Store, blaming Apple’s Core Technology Fee for the slow uptake. It’s worth noting that no such fee applies on Android, though.
When asked whether Epic can continue to absorb the ongoing cost of this program, Eurogamer reports that Tim Sweeney replied: “It’s uneconomical and will cause us to lose a lot of money, [but] we feel like we have to break the logjam there…[The CTF] is an absolutely insidious design, deviously constructed and deviously defended, and its the most critical thing the European regulators will need to overturn.”
“We might run into serious financial problems after a couple more decades of this, but we’re determined to fight this out,” he continued. “I expect large parts of this struggle will go on over the rest of decade, and we’re fully committed to it.”
Sweeney later reportedly added: “Most of the profit your business produces will go to Apple and Google, who’ll use it for fuck all – share buybacks and dividends rather than investment in hiring or technology or making the world a better place.”
The Eurogamer report also notes that the Epic Games Store has so far reached 30m downloads on iOS and Android, some way off the 100m Epic had targeted when it announced the initiative.
