Could they build the Play store cost into the Play store option? The same game would be available through their website with two links, one for direct download from the website, and one link 30% higher to the play store. Let consumers decide how much inconvenience / insecurity that 30% is worth.

I don't know about Play Store policies, but Apple's App Store definitely doesn't allow the app listing or the app itself to link to an external site for subscriptions or payment methods. See <https://gizmodo.com/5761383/apples-new-subscription-model-is... (I couldn't find a better reference after doing a quick search.)

Yes these are not comparable. Google favors user freedom and is diametrically opposite of Appples app store.

If they sell directly they’ll have to cover the costs of their payment processor, as well as their own costs in maintaining the website & customer support. So the difference in net revenues to Fortnite won’t be 30%.

I have idea what percentage of revenue it will cost them to sell directly, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s over 10%.

Isn't Fortnite, mobile and desktop, f2p with IAPs? So, building the Play Store cost into the Play Store edition would mean higher price IAP for people who were already playing free which would mean more players that don't buy or buy less, meaning a higher ratio of players that are a net cost to Epic.

Discussed here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17681734

If this slows down kids adoption of Fortnite, it’s a loss for the addictions treatment industry.

Good for them! This will make an excellent case study.

Teaching people to bypass normal security measures, especially kids, is a really horrible idea.

I agree 30% is too high. But this is not a good idea.

There is no security benefit to Google's scare tactics of calling other companies "untrusted sources". Both because Google scans apps installed from untrusted sources on your phone anyways, and because Google's malware scanning is literally industry-worst: https://www.av-test.org/en/antivirus/mobile-devices/

Imagine if Microsoft made you enable "untrusted sources" to install Steam on a PC.

Google scans apps before they are listed in the Play Store.

That's why scanning on the device is such a wasteland of awful.

No it's not. A good part of us here started their IT path by messing with security.

I see posts on Reddit fairly often where someone says that Chrome is warning them about going to Google.com. And then I see people "helpfully" telling them to just ignore the warning.

They're being man-in-the-middle attacked. And people are telling them how to mess with security, in a way that's completely harmful to them.

Messing with security so you can install a game is teaching you dangerous lessons. Shotgun aimed at face.

A decision with a lot of confidence. Good luck to them.