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Comment by throwaway6000 | Hacker News Reader

Fortnite for Android just got axed from the Google Play Store too https://techcrunch.com/2020/08/13/fortnite-android-google-ki...

Oops! Apple Bad, Google Good? ;)

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Both bad. Android may allow side-loading a bit easier than Apple, but the Play store is still a large monopoly on Android. It comes pre-installed on basically every device and is the de-facto way of installing software there. Side loading requires the user to click past a bunch of scary messages that is not required for apps installed through the Play store.

It is much more difficult to distribute apps from outside the original store when compared with desktop platforms. Changing this would be a good thing for users and developers alike, for both Android and iOS.

Google Bad, Apple Worse.

At least you can get other app stores on Android.

I expect an elic store on android soon.. And they might have a chance! Fortnite will pull in a lot of people!

That's an interesting question. Couldn't they distribute a "Fortnite loader" through Play store? Since Fortnite is free-to-play, the loader wouldn't charge anything, so it wouldn't technically violate any policy. Seems like an interesting workaround to avoid giving Google the paycut.

Unfortunately, the Play Store has a policy that prevents publishers from distributing competing app stores via the Play Store.

But what if you distribute "Fortnite"? Free to play, no premium functionality, free "upgrade" - except that the upgrade is from outside the app store. And once you get it, you can start paying for stuff. I don't think this qualifies as "an app store", since it's not an app store/ you can't download other applications from it (just the premium version of this one).

How about Epic WRONG?

On Android, you can download and install the apk directly from Epic Games: https://www.epicgames.com/fortnite/en-US/mobile/android/get-... You just need to click through a few warning screens and it works fine.

But you can just download from the website directly. Android allows you to sideload apps.

Apple sort of ok, Google worse, Epic worst. You guys should don't seem to understand what kind of companies these three are.

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