Fortnite circumvents Google Play fees with direct payment option

Epic Games on Thursday announced the Fortnite Mega Drop, a permanent discount on V-bucks and other purchases of up to 20% off. The developer said these changes are permanent and available on every platform where you can download Fortnite.

The bigger news, however, is the fact that Epic Games has introduced direct payments on mobile. The change means that Fortnite is circumventing the app store fees associated with Google’s Play Store and Apple’s App Store. If you don’t go with the direct payment option, the newly implemented discounts won’t apply. “Currently, when using Apple and Google payment options, Apple and Google collect a 30% fee, and the up to 20% price drop does not apply,” Epic Games said in a blog post. “If Apple and Google lower their fees on payments in the future, Epic will pass along the savings to you.”

If you choose the direct payment option, you’ll be brought to a screen where you can enter your credit card or PayPal information. With the discount, 1,000 V-bucks cost $7.99 — otherwise, the price is $9.99 due to the fees associated with Google and Apple payment options. If you recently purchased V-bucks in the last 30 days, players will be granted a V-bucks bonus by August 17. Epic also said that all active players will get the Shooting Starstaff Pickaxe for free.

Epic Games said that direct payments are perfectly safe and that many commonly used apps, including Grubhub, Fandango, McDonald’s, and many others, accept direct payments. “We think all developers should be free to support direct payments in all apps,” Epic Games said. “In operating Fortnite in open platforms and operating the Epic Games Store, Epic has processed over $1,600,000,000 of direct payments successfully, and uses industry trusted encryption and security measures to protect customer transactions.”

Epic Games has had a fraught relationship with Google Play from the beginning. When Fortnite originally launched on Android, you could only download it from Epic’s website or Samsung’s Galaxy Store. Eventually, however, Fortnite was put on Google Play, but not without Epic first blasting Google, saying the search giant puts software downloaded outside of Google Play at an unfair disadvantage.

Today’s announcement feels almost like a dare to Apple and Google to pull Fortnite from their respective app stores. With both Apple and Google under scrutiny from antitrust regulators and politicians, such a move would bring even more attention to both companies’ app store policies. We will be keeping an eye on this news to see how Apple and Google respond to Epic Games.

Fortnite (Free⁺, Google Play) →

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