Google Play now notifies searches for Fortnite that Epic’s battle royale phenomenon is not available on the platform.

Fortnite launched on Android last week, starting with an exclusive period on Samsung Galaxy devices. As predicted, Epic is bypassing the Google Play store by distributing the game solely through its own website on Android.

That’s unlikely to stop chancers from trying their luck on the store with their own clones, however. As such, Google has placed a warning under searches for Fortnite on the Google Play store to try and steer users clear.

Open stores

Epic CEO Tim Sweeney has labelled the industry-standard 30 per cent revenue cut “disproportionate to the cost of the services these stores perform".

“The 30 per cent store tax is a high cost in a world where game developers’ 70 per cent must cover all the cost of developing, operating and supporting their games,” said Sweeney.

He added that he hopes other publishers mightly follow suit.

“Independent game releases and stores already exist on Android, including the Amazon Appstore, but we’d love to see the mobile games ecosystem grow as robustly and competitively as PC with multiple stores like Steam, GOG, Origin and Battle.net," said Sweeney.