Epic CEO Tim Sweeney: Fortnite back on mobile represents 'massive growth opportunities'

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Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney thinks that Fortnite's re-introduction onto mobile will lead to a "big shift" in its business as the game reaches many millions more people.

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US courts recently levied scathing punishment on Apple for its non-compliance in the Epic v Apple trial. After courts found that the iOS App Store's fee structure was anticompetitive, Apple had been ordered via injunction to allow apps to link to third-party payment systems from iOS (instead of buying in-app, you'd buy from Epic via a web browser). Apple responded by throwing up multi-screen roadblocks in an attempt to deter users, even charging developers extra 27% fees in the process.

Now that the courts have intervened, finding that Apple willfully went against the court order, Sweeney says that Fortnite is coming back to iOS sometime next week. In a recent interview with CNBC, Sweeney says that he's confident that Fortnite will be able to capture part of the $92.5 billion mobile market to the extent that Epic's business will see "shift a lot."

"First of all, I have high confidence now that the court has removed all of Apple's scare screens and friction from their payment process, that we'll have a large number of customers choosing to use Epic Games payment service and preferring to get savings passed along to them by using our payment service...rather than using Apple's far more expensive payment service.

"So I'm really optimistic about that.

"Fortnite was last in the iOS App Store in 2020, and a lot has changed in the world since then. We've seen a huge increase in mobile gaming while console and PC gaming remain constant.

"Looking back at 2020, in the peak of our iOS timeframe, 10% of our revenue and a little bit less than 10% of our playtime was on mobile devices, versus PC and console. Now if you look at the modern mobile era, [in games like] Roblox you'll find the majority of playtime on mobile. Especially in developing economies and other places around the world, it's an increasingly mobile world.

"So I think our business is going to shift a lot and we have massive growth opportunities over time.

"These open rules the court has now imposed on Apple in the United States, Europe has imposed on Apple through the Digital Markets Act, it's these rules spread around the world that's going to be a boon for us and for all developers that are making apps."

Epic's ambitions go beyond Fortnite; the company wants to create an market-based ecosystem of products that developers can sell for a lower revenue split (now 100% for the first $1 million, in favor of the developer), and the potential opportunity to lower prices of in-game microtransactions by removing extra fees that developers have to pay. The Epic Games Store recently released onto mobile as a direct web download--the EGS isn't available natively and can only be accessed via .apk files, and the company also announced Epic Webshops, which is basically a browser store for in-game items.