Fortnite is back on the Google Play Store after almost six years of absence, becoming available worldwide once more after Epic Games and Google settled their long-standing dispute.
Announced by Epic earlier today, the company is currently offering a Fortnite skin as a reward for sending an invite to another user with the Invite a Friend button.
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This spirit of friendship manifested itself earlier this month when the companies announced a settlement to end the app store antitrust case. The news came in months after a California federal court postponed the approval of the settlement’s proposal over concerns about the terms. In addition, the companies wanted to keep the full details of said settlement confidential, which judge James Donato rejected, saying he didn’t “want to do this in the dark.”
“The only changed circumstance that I can see right now is Epic and Google—two mortal enemies who pounded each other relentlessly in this courtroom for many years—are suddenly BFFs,” Donato said at the time.
Said concerns continued in a January hearing, in which Donato said the new settlement was a “sweetheart deal” that would benefit the two companies at the expense of the broader market.
On March 4, as reported by Bloomberg, Google unveiled a new system for apps on its devices, agreeing to easier access for rivals and lower fees for developers. This, in turn, results in a bid to resolve not just the US antitrust litigation, but also to comply with new regulatory requirements in Europe and other regions.
Now, under the proposal, other companies can register with Google, pay a one-time fee, and offer an app store on Android, Google’s vice president of product development Sameer Samat told Bloomberg.
Google will also lower the fees it charges developers from a standard 30 percent to as low as 15 or 10 percent on recurring subscriptions, the VP added. Meanwhile, fee changes in the US, UK, and EU are expected to go into effect by June, with changes in Australia, Korea, and Japan before the end of 2026.
“Anybody can launch a competitive app store now,” Epic CEO Tim Sweeney told Bloomberg in a joint interview with Samat.
The news of Fortnite returning to Google Play worldwide comes a year after the battle royale returned to the App Store in the United States after a five-year absence, as well as Australia, after both Apple and Google were found to have employed anticompetitive practices.
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