Epic Games shifts EU app store strategy after missing target by 71 million users

Epic Games is launching an additional 19 games for its third-party app store in the EU, once some bugs are worked out, and it has also promised to pay the Core Technology Fee for apps on its store.

After the European Union Digital Markets Act mandated that Apple allow third-party app stores, Epic Games jumped on the bandwagon. It launched the store with Fortnite and a slim selection of other titles in August 2024.

According to The Verge, Epic Games is making moves to make its alternative app store more appealing with 19 new third-party titles and some financial incentives for developers. The announcement arrives after it failed to meet a goal of 100 million alternative app store users, reaching only 29 million.

The new games include Bloons TD 6 and Dungeon of the Endless: Apogee. Epic CEO Tim Sweeney also shared that the intention is to work to enable cross-platform purchases by offering a single, cross-platform store.

"Our aim here isn't just to launch a bunch of different stores in different places, but to build a single, cross-platform store in which, within the era of multi-platform games, if you buy a game or digital items in one place, you have the ability to own them everywhere," Sweeney said at a press briefing. The hope is, eventually, that a new game will be offered weekly, but it will start with monthly releases at first and ramp up.

The financial incentive offered by Epic to developers is a one-year payment of the Core Technology Fee. Apple requires any developer that has more than one million installs to pay 50 euro cents for every install after the one millionth.

Epic will pay the fee instead for all titles for developers that participate in the Epic Games Store's free games program on iOS or iPadOS devices. This applies to all downloads regardless of which app store the app or game is downloaded from.

The slow adoption of the alternative app store has been blamed on "scare screens" that are shown to users that attempt to install alternative app stores. Fortnite's popularity likely helped with the initial 29 million users, but the game is available on other platforms with fewer hoops to jump through.

Sweeney has had a lot to say about Apple and its App Store policies since it launched a campaign that forced Apple to boot Fortnite from Apple's platforms. It started with a parody video of Apple's 1984 ad starring Fortnite characters.

Regulatory pressure will continue, and Apple is already facing potential fines in the EU for violations of the DMA. However, the new administration may try to force the EU to soften some of its requirements as a favor to Apple.

It remains to be seen how the new administration will treat the Epic vs. Apple situation, given that Apple has sidled up with promises to invest in American infrastructure, while Epic has put all of its force behind EU regulation. In spite of both being American companies, Sweeney's public stance against President Trump will likely not win him any favors.