The Epic Games Store is now offering more than just video games. Initially created as an online games marketplace to rival Valve’s Steam, the Epic Games Store will now let you download Spotify, the popular music streaming app.
Spotify is a free download, just as it is on other platforms like the app stores for iPhones and Androids. You can pay a subscription cost for commercial-free music.
Spotify’s availability on the Epic Games Store arrives as Epic is in prolonged legal battles with Apple and Google over the business models of each company’s respective app store. Epic has sued both companies over the removal of the mobile version of Fortnite, alleging antitrust violations and arguing that developers can and should be able to process their own payments and circumvent giving 30 per cent of all in-app revenue to the store owner.
The Epic Games Store is still a relatively new digital distribution platform, having launched in December 2018 as a rival to Valve’s Steam. But from the jump, Epic offered more generous payouts to developers, taking only 12 per cent of a developer’s revenues for its cut instead of the 30 per cent taken in many cases by Valve, as well as Apple and Google.
This is the first app offered in the Epic Games Store that isn’t a video game, and likely signals that the company is expanding the scope of its digital storefront. Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney, tweeted the news and hinted that Spotify is just the first nongame app to come to the store.
The Epic Games Store now stores more than games! https://t.co/RRvivqimsx
— Tim Sweeney (@TimSweeneyEpic) December 17, 2020