PETALING JAYA, Aug 17 — Fortnite-creator Epic Games launched its own app store Friday that allows users to bypass the stores run by Apple and Google.

The Epic Games Store is available to users of Android phones worldwide and for iPhone and iPad users in Europe.

The launch of the store comes after Epic waged legal battles and lobbied regulators to loosen the grip of Apple and Google on the sale of apps for phones running their operating systems.

The EU's new law known as the Digital Markets Act (DMA) has forced Apple to make the opening to app developers in Europe but the US firm is not doing so elsewhere.

"We're very happy to be on the verge of launching our games on iOS and Android, enabled by Europe's new DMA law,” Epic's chief executive Tim Sweeney said at a news conference from the company's office in Sweden.

Fortnite is also making a return to iPhones and iPads after having been banned in 2020 for seeking to circumvent Apple's payment systems.

In order to attract app developers to its store Epic is offering them better revenue-sharing terms than Apple or Google.

But Epic said Apple and Google aren't making it easy with a long and untransparent procedure to install their app store and disadvantageous for developers to cooperate with them.

Epic has set a goal of 100 million installs of its app store on Android and iOS devices by the end of the year and "the only thing standing in our way is going to be the friction that Apple and Google put in front of us, and it's pretty significant,” said Steve Allison, head of the Epic Games Store.

In addition to Fortnite, Rocket League Sideswipe is also available on the store, as is Fall Guys, which is making its first appearance on mobile.

"This is just the beginning of a long effort to bring our games back to all these platforms worldwide, and the fight's not over until Fortnite is back on iOS everywhere and free of Apple's taxes,” said Sweeney. — AFP