Fortnite Android app: How to avoid fakes [UPDATE: Epic Statement]

Epic Games announced today they'd be releasing Fortnite for Android through their own website instead of Google Play. Because of this – or perhaps with our without Epic Games' help, fake versions of Fortnite began to pop up – they've been appearing since the iOS version of the game was first released. Now that Epic Games confirmed that the Fortnite app will be available on the web, not through Google, there's a whole lot of potential out there for mistaken identities and malicious parties attacking the helpless addicts of the game.

Stop trusting search engines to direct users to the correct download location for apps. Downloading games on a PC is different from downloading games on a smartphone. There's an innocence in mobile gamers that's been beaten mercilessly out of PC gamers over a period of decades.

A PC gamer knows to check themselves before they wreck themselves. They know to tab out to a new window to check whether a website is the official download point for a new game before they hit that download button. On a mobile phone, double-checking anything is well past the patience and effort threshold of your average smartphone user.

Not only that – once the actual real game is downloaded, if a user ever gets that far, they'll have to open a secondary door in their phone. They'll have to open the 3rd-party-sources gate on their Android phone to install the app. I would hope that once the app is installed, the Fortnite app would direct users back to that point in Settings to re-close that gate, so that no more 3rd-party apps could be installed without that guard up.

Most apps do not remind the user to re-close the gate. But most apps aren't meant to be downloaded outside of the Google Play app store.

Also note: We're waiting on a comment from Epic Games about the situation. It's really just developing as of this afternoon, so don't let's get too excited about it just yet. Unless nothing changes, in which case GET YOUR PIXELATED PITCHFORKS!

UPDATE: A good move by Epic, assuming it works as intended. Have a peek at the tweet below from Sweeney.

UPDATE 2: Epic Games responded to SlashGear's questions with the following statement from Epic CEO Tim Sweeney.

"First, Epic wants to have a direct relationship with our customers on all platforms where that's possible. The great thing about the Internet and the digital revolution is that this is possible, now that physical storefronts and middlemen distributors are no longer required.

Second, we're motivated by economic efficiency. The 30% store tax is a high cost in a world where game developers' 70% must cover all the cost of developing, operating, and supporting their games. There's a rationale for this on console where there's enormous investment in hardware, often sold below cost, and marketing campaigns in broad partnership with publishers.

But on open platforms, 30% is disproportionate to the cost of the services these stores perform, such as payment processing, download bandwidth, and customer service. We're intimately familiar with these costs from our experience operating Fortnite as a direct-to-customer service on PC and Mac." – Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney