Google has denied Epic Games’ request to exempt Fortnite from a 30 percent revenue cut on Play Store

Epic Games ported their popular battle royale game Fortnite to Android last year. However, they chose to not publish the game on the Google Play Store and chose to distribute it from their own website instead.

Following this, Epic Games launched its own Epic Games Store app earlier this year, on Android. To attract more developers to their app, the company undercut the Play Store's revenue model by giving the developers 88% of the revenue generated from their games.

And now, Epic Games recently submitted Fortnite to the Play Store and asked Google to circumvent the 30% revenue cut and provide them with a special exception.

Google has refused.

Epic Games' CEO Tim Sweeney, according to a report on 9to5Google, explained that their request for an exemption was just a part of their goal to 'bring about a broader industry-wide change'.

"We have asked that Google not enforce its publicly stated expectation that products distributed through Google Play use Google's payment service for in-app purchase. We believe this form of tying a mandatory payment service with a 30% fee is illegal in this case of a distribution platform with over 50% market share. We note that Google Play's Developer Distribution Agreement does not require developers use Google payments. It merely references a number of non-contractual documents asking developers to do so," Sweeney said in his statement.

Google spoke to The Verge about this and said that they would not be granting Fornite an exemption. The Google spokesperson said - "Android enables multiple app stores and choices for developers to distribute apps. Google Play has a business model and billing policy that allows us to invest in our platform and tools to help developers build successful businesses while keeping users safe. We welcome any developer that recognized the value of Google Play and expect them to participate under the same terms as other developers."

Google also noted that Epic Games has not asked for an exemption from Apple and they are paying the company standard 30% cut for the App Store access. The spokesperson went on to explain further that the Play Store's ability to promote apps, provide security, hosting, tools for technical testing, analytics and bring in more users absolutely justifies the 30% cut the company keeps.