Breaking Apple and Google’s app store duopoly is proving even harder than Epic anticipated, it seems. But Steve Allison is still up for the fight.
Speaking to us at GDC last week, the Epic Games Store boss was very clear on how Epic’s storefront is faring compared to expectations, and what needs to happen next to gain further momentum.
The Epic Games Store on mobile has close to 30m installs overall, he says, some way off its initial target of 100m by the end of 2024. Allison also says there’s still considerable trepidation among developers in terms of committing to other app stores. And the very messy rules and regulations around doing all of that still do not help.
But Epic now has around 60 games on its iOS store and close to 200 on Android, where it is available globally and is subject to fewer scare screens. Self-publishing is coming to EGS on mobile in August which will help those numbers rise further, he says, and as various legislation kicks in around the world, the churn-out due to those scare screens is dropping, mostly on Android but on iOS too.
The below conversation has been edited for clarity and readability.
There was little mention of your mobile store’s performance in the Epic Games Store year in review. How is the mobile store doing?
We’re at close to 30m downloads so far, we were hoping to get to 100 but we learned a lot about the impact of scare screens and our thesis on them proved to be correct, maybe worse than our thesis, unfortunately.
The Google settlement relieves us of that on Android. We have limited addressable market and lots of issues on iOS…we’re there, we got Fortnite back to market, but 8% of mobile is basically what Europe represents on iOS.
It’s hard because there’s a lot of angst from developers about pissing off Apple for joining an alt store that has 8% and has a [Core Technology Fee] fee that they don’t understand…so we’ve been spending the last couple of years educating folks.
We have just about 60 titles on iOS in Europe on mobile. Mobile EGS on Android is global, and has creeping up to close to 200 titles now. We’re going to open up self publishing for both Android and iOS on EGS around August, so we’ve been really purposefully curating it, not being bombastic about what’s happening, because we had to learn a lot.
Now with Japan coming online for iOS there’s new consternation a different fee structure. Most developers are like ‘what the f**k’s going on, I don’t know how to figure this out’…which basically puts most of them into ‘wait and see’ mode.
In the short term, we’ll continue to work on iOS and continue to bring Fortnite back and all the partners that are willing to come wherever we can next like Japan, Brazil and hopefully Australia.
But that’ll be more about first party Epic games than opportunity for third parties, because it’s a lot to work through. But I think the Android side of the business will become really interesting as we get self-publishing up on its feet and we have the new fee structures.
The scare screen drop-off is like 80%. We’re super excited that it’s gone. Apple made a change a few months ago just to get in compliance with some regulations and we saw the bottom of the funnel increase by 30 or 40%. So those scare screens going away is going to be really powerful for us.
There is and was a lot of consternation from many, many mobile developers about their relationship with Google and Apple. In just the week or two we’ve been past [the Google settlement], we’re seeing some of our partners who were going to wait and see moving forward.
So I’m really excited about both what it’s going to do for the Epic Games Store but just generally for opportunities for developers to go other places and cast a wider net.
Are you busy enlisting some of your Tencent-owned friends – Supercell, Miniclip and so on – to sign up to EGS? Does being part of that wider Tencent network help in terms of getting support?
Nobody wants to first one to move…Tencent were one of the first – they brought Honor of Kings over to Epic Games Store because they wanted to understand what would happen. It’s a bit of a ‘dam breaker’. They didn’t do it on iOS because the CTF fee for a game like that, even just in one region, would be probably not super worth it.
We’re super close to Mihoyo, and they’ve been waiting in the wings as well. I’m hoping that we get them over the line to get Genshin and get Honkai…Netmarble has gone all-in with us on the Epic Games Store on PC. That will start to we can break that dam, by showing some of the bigger players coming, at least on Android.
Isn’t iOS the key platform here, given the power of the devices and iOS players’ higher spend? Where are you overall on iOS?
We’ve got to get the full picture. Android is really valuable in places where Apple isn’t. It’s super complicated, for sure. The different fee structures cause consternation that means anyone who’s got a big business is not super interested in coming to one region.
So we’re continuing to work through regulators and litigation, in some cases. Our conversations with Apple, outside of all that, actually are, in many cases, pretty productive. But it’s going to be a challenge for a while.
The breakthrough that we need is not there yet…if Tim [Sweeney] were here, he’d probably say we’re going to keep plugging away. Every domino that we can knock down, we’re going to knock them down.
At some point, momentum will take care of itself. One region isn’t enough dominoes, but maybe we get Japan, Brazil, Australia to a place where we can launch and we launch in those four regions, and now we make progress on Android…maybe we get there.
