Epic Games Store Mobile will do "all of the things developers want facilitated", but what about premium?

As the mobile ecosystem undergoes its latest evolution with more third-party app stores making their way to the market, speakers from Epic Games, ustwo and Playdigious came together on stage at PGC London 2025 to express their optimism for the mobile space and discuss the potential of third-party stores.

Of course, Epic Games Store Mobile is currently getting primed to open to third-party developers.

Epic Games BD director, EGS mobile Sarah Thomson assured that developers will be able to launch games on the platform regardless of the tech they use - there’s no requirement to use Unreal to function with Epic’s SDK.

"We’re very supportive of whatever tech you’re using," she said.

The "enormous scale" of mobile

Speaking about why the Epic Games Store is expanding, Epic Games director of Epic Games Store biz dev Walter Somol said: "Making games has got very expensive. 30% commissions are no longer justified. We’re a developer too and we want to build a store we would want to put our own games on."

"So much of what we do is driven by the man at the top, Tim Sweeney," added Thomson.

"You can probably make some fun guesses of what’s coming down the line once we enter the mobile space. All of the things developers want facilitated are going to be possible on our store."

Thomson also noted her excitement at the "huge opportunity" for the Epic Games Store in regions like Latin America and Southern Asia, where mobile is such a prevalent platform.

"The beauty with mobile is it’s such an enormous scale that even if you’re fragmenting the market you can still fine a share of players," she added.

The premium side

Playdigious head of business development Anthony Martinho spoke on the premium side of games.

He suggested that a new store "isn’t as interesting as it should be for a premium publisher compared to a free-to-play publisher", but at the same time expressed confidence that premium’s space in the mobile games market will continue to exist, and perhaps expand.

"I definitely think that the experience players have on PC with premium games is something that can be transferred to mobile more. There is more and more understanding that mobile has a real audience of real gamers who want real game experiences," he said.

On the other hand, ustwo games commercial manager Jane Campbell noted that third-party stores are "something we’ve been keeping an eye on for a while" as "discoverability across these new stores is going to be huge for us".

While Campbell considers the subscription space the "natural home" for premium games, she shared that ustwo "definitely wouldn’t say no" to making a free-to-play game in the future.

"It’s something we’ve ideated around - what an ustwo version of free-to-play looks like."

There’s a lot more to discover from PGC London 2025. Check out the full schedule here.