"On open platforms, 30 per cent is disproportionate to the cost of the services these stores perform, such as payment processing, download bandwidth, and customer service."

'Battle Pass'

Those kinds of services — the actual cost of which Sweeney is "intimately familiar with" from Fortnite on PC and Mac — will instead be provided by Epic itself, with players using a payment method associated with their account for purchasing in-game currency. The currency can be used to buy cosmetic items or a "Battle Pass", which upgrades your account to let you earn cosmetic items by playing.

Fortnite is available on PC (where Epic Games made its name by creating shooters and, more notably, by licensing its Unreal Engine that powers a huge number of contemporary games) as well as on all current consoles and iOS devices. Aside from those playing the PlayStation 4 game, which Sony has blocked from talking to the Xbox and Switch versions, Fortnite players can meet up with friends no matter which device they're using, and the experience will be no different on Android.

Sweeney says players will need "a recent high-end Android smartphone" to run the game, although he couldn't divulge specific specs.

"Fortnite brings the game's full PC and console experience to Android," he says. "Of the roughly 2500 million Android devices, we estimate around 300 million are Fortnite-ready."

The game is expected to launch in beta some time during August.

Despite the unusal move to avoid the Play Store, Sweeney doesn't think fans will have a hard time finding the game.

'Easy to find'

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"Once it goes live, Fortnite for Android will be easy to find with a simple web search on Google, Bing, or DuckDuckGo, just as with Fortnite for PC and Mac," he says.

Sweeney says Epic has chatted to Google about their shared goal of keeping players safe on the platform and that, along with the issue of money, the move is motivated by the company's love of open platforms and the drive to have a "direct relationship" with customers on as many platforms as possible.

"Open platforms are an expression of freedom: the freedom of users to install the software they choose, and the freedom of developers to release software as they wish," he says, adding that gaming has been successful on the open PC platform through many outlets including Steam, Battle.net, Riot Games, Good old Games, and EpicGames.com.

Though players are opened up to security risks on open platforms, Sweeney says gamers have shown they're up to the responsibility that comes with using one.

"Most importantly, mobile operating systems increasingly provide robust, permissions-based security, enabling users to choose what each app is allowed to do: save files; access the microphone; access your contacts," he says.

"In our view, this is the way all computer and smartphone platforms should provide security, rather than entrusting one monopoly app store as the arbiter of what software users are allowed to obtain."

Asked if Epic would avoid the App Store on iOS if Apple allowed it, Sweeney answers: "Yes".