Fortnite is coming to Android, but only 300 million devices will run it well

After celebrating Fortnite’s first birthday last month, this living, action building game for iPhone, iPad, consoles and Windows PCs is allegedly expanding to Android later today.

Due to complex graphics and the powerful, resource-intensive Unreal Engine, the Android version of Fortnite requires a high-end smartphone. Of the 2.5 billion Android devices in the world or so, 300 million will run the game well, according to Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney.

“The actual Android version isn’t as much of a determining factor as the CPU and graphics processor set,” he continued. “Any device from up to three years ago with a high-end GPU should run the game pretty well.”

The popular multiplayer battle royale game using Unreal Engine 4 from Epic Games is launching on the Android platform in a unique way and that’s far more interesting part of this story— developers are going to take a shot at sideloading Fortnite on Android phones.

Sweeney told VentureBeat today that the game will require an APK download through the official website at epicgames.com.

That’s right, Fortnite won’t be available through Google’s Play Store at all.

“You go to our website, click the download button and go through some prompts to download and install Fortnite,” Said Sweeney. “There’s no third-party store involved at all. It’s just like the PC experience, the way that PC and Mac users install Fortnite.

But why would they bypass Play Store? To keep all the revenue to themselves, that’s why.

There are two reasons for what we’re doing. First, we want to have a direct relationship with our customers wherever we can. On open platforms like PC and Android, it’s possible for them to get the software direct from us. We can be in contact with them and not have a third-party distributor in between.

The second motivation is the economics of the store ecosystem as it exists right now.

There’s typically a 30/70 split. From the 70 percent, the developer pays all the costs of developing the game, operating it, marketing it, acquiring users and everything else. For most developers that eats up the majority of their revenue. We’re trying to make our software available to users in as economically efficient a way as possible.

That means distributing the software directly to them, taking payment through Mastercard, Visa, Paypal, and other options and not having a store take 30 percent.

Because Fortnite is free, the only way Epic makes money from it is when people buy virtual stuff for real cash. And boy, are they buying: the free-to-play title has generated more than a billion dollars in revenues thus far, and hundreds of millions of downloads.

Payment in Fortnite for Android is available with credit cards and PayPal.

Fortnite is also a cross-platform title so iOS and Android can play together. In fact, every case of cross-platform play and cross-platform purchasing is supported except for the pairings of PlayStation and Xbox, and PlayStation and Switch.

As of June 20, Fortnite has crossed the $100 million download mark on App Store, a remarkable achievement in just 90 days following its launch. Actually, this makes it the second quickest game to reach this particular milestone.

Assuming you play games, are you a Fortnite fan? If not, why?

Let us know in the comments down below.