Epic Games’ Fortnite will be joining a new third-party app store, the Oppo App Market.
The hugely popular battle-royale title will be available in India, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam via the Oppo App Market. The game will only be available on Oppo handsets and will come with 90 fps gameplay as standard. Oppo’s announcement also indicates that the hardware considerations may broaden in the near future too.
Bringing Fortnite, arguably Epic’s flagship title, to a third-party storefront – even if this isn’t the first time – is still another big move for the company. Predictions have floated around as to when the game will return to iOS, if at all, but it seems that Epic are content to delay their reconciliation with Apple, not roll over, and explore other avenues for the time being.
As noted on LinkedIn by industry commentator Joel Brodie, “Fortnite available on Oppo App Market is a taste of what’s to come for mobile OEM marketing and advertising going mainstream into 2024.
“IMO, this deal is driven by the fact the game dev’s really hate [the] 30% Apple/Google Play tax. The difference now is that with web shops, Digital Market Act in EU, and the scale that mobile OEMs have in distribution and advertising, devs can start to do something about it.”
Why this region of Asia?
The decision to go with Oppo could be to do with the company’s primary distribution being in Southeast Asia, itself an incredibly important market for the battle-royale genre. While markets like China are mainly focused on their own domestic franchises (such as Honor of Kings, which outweighs similarly dominant title League of Legends in China), SEA is incredibly receptive to international titles.
With the Southeast Asian market set to hit more than $7bn by 2027, and Fortnite’s return to iOS still looking unlikely, alternative storefronts and support from alternative hardware manufacturers is a smart move. Apple themselves have been seemingly making overtures to the Chinese market, in an attempt to strengthen relations with the strong gaming market in the country – does that mean Fortnite’s absence is burning a hole in their wallets?
