Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney has already turned his displeasure with Apple into a prolonged legal battle. On Tuesday, he laid out a radically different vision for how people should be able to buy apps and games.
“What the world really needs now is a single store that works with all platforms,” Sweeney said. Epic is coordinating with various developers to build a system that would enable users “to buy software in one place, knowing that they’d have it on all devices and all platforms.”
“Right now, software ownership is fragmented between the iOS App Store, the Android Google Play marketplace, different stores on Xbox, PlayStation, and Nintendo Switch, and then Microsoft Store and the Mac App Store,” he said.
- Epic has worked to avoid Google’s and Apple’s developer fees for apps and in-app purchases, allowing users to download the game directly from its website or through Samsung’s Galaxy Store.
- Google became concerned that developers would follow Epic’s lead and launched a task force to address the issue.
- The tech giant estimated that developers leaving its Play Store could cost it $6 billion by 2022.
Epic was valued at $28.7 billion after a $1 billion funding round in April. Epic’s own game store earned $401 million in revenue last year.
