The Day the 30% Died: How Epic Beat Google and Rewrote the Play Store

Android was supposed to be the open one. Unlike the iPhone, an Android phone has always let you install apps from outside Google's store. So when Epic Games sued Google on the same August day in 2020 that it sued Apple, many lawyers thought the Google case was the weaker of the two.

They had it backwards. In December 2023 a San Francisco jury found Google liable on every claim Epic brought. The appeals failed, the Supreme Court declined to step in, and on 4 March 2026 Epic and Google announced a settlement that ended the Play Store's flat 30% commission and cut the standard fee to 20% or less. Fortnite returned to Google Play worldwide that month. It is the biggest change to the Android business model since the Play Store was born.

Open in theory, closed in practice

Epic's argument was that Android's openness was mostly on paper. Installing a game from a website meant digging through security menus and tapping past warnings that the app could harm your phone. Meanwhile, Google paid phone makers and carriers to keep its store front and centre, struck deals with big developers to keep their games on Google Play, and required games sold through Play to use Google Play Billing, with its 30% cut (15% on the first $1 million a developer earns each year, and on subscriptions).

Epic knew the friction first-hand. When Fortnite came to Android in 2018, Epic skipped the Play Store entirely and offered the game as a download from its own website. After about a year and a half, it gave up and put Fortnite on Google Play in April 2020, saying that Google's warnings and restrictions put third-party software at a disadvantage. Four months later, Epic added its own payment option and Google removed the game.

A jury, not a judge

The key difference from the Apple case was who decided. The Apple trial was heard by a judge alone. Epic v. Google went before a jury in San Francisco in November 2023, with Judge James Donato presiding. Evidence about Google's revenue-sharing deals with phone makers, its payments to large game developers and its deleted internal chats did Google no favours.

On 11 December 2023 the jury ruled for Epic on all eleven counts, finding that Google had illegally monopolised the Android app distribution and in-app billing markets.

Inside the courtroom

The trial gave the public a rare look at how the Play Store business worked. Jurors heard about Project Hug, Google's internal name for a programme of deals and incentives aimed at keeping big game developers happy and on Google Play, at a time when Google feared studios might follow Epic and distribute games themselves. They also heard about Google's revenue-sharing agreements with phone makers and carriers, which rewarded them for keeping the Play Store as the main store on their devices.

Another theme was evidence that was missing. Judge Donato sharply criticised Google for its handling of internal chat messages, many of which had been set to delete automatically, and told jurors they could take that into account. Epic's chief executive Tim Sweeney testified too, describing the company's long fight against store fees.

The injunction: rival stores inside Google Play

On 7 October 2024, Judge Donato issued a permanent injunction with remedies that went further than anything Apple faced in the US. For three years, Google had to:

• let rival app stores be distributed through Google Play itself;
• give those rival stores access to the Play Store's catalogue of apps;
• stop paying developers or phone makers for exclusivity or for preinstalling Google Play;
• allow developers to tell users about other ways to pay, and to use other billing systems.

Google appealed. On 31 July 2025 the Ninth Circuit upheld the verdict and the remedies. On 6 October 2025 the Supreme Court declined to hear Google's appeal. The injunction was going to happen.

From fight to settlement

Then the tone changed. On 5 November 2025 the two companies announced a proposed settlement under which Google would lower its service fees to between 9% and 20% and create a programme letting rival stores such as the Epic Games Store register as approved Android app stores worldwide, installed without the scary warnings. Judge Donato was sceptical at a hearing that month and questioned whether the deal changed enough of what the jury had found illegal.

On 4 March 2026 Epic and Google announced the completed settlement: the flat 30% fee was gone, standard commissions dropped to 20% or lower depending on the type of purchase, and third-party stores were welcomed onto Android in all regions. Fortnite was cleared to return to Google Play around the world within weeks.

By the numbers

• 13 August 2020: Fortnite removed from Google Play; Epic sues Google the same day.
• 11 of 11: claims the jury decided in Epic's favour in December 2023.
• 3 years: the length of Judge Donato's October 2024 injunction.
• 2: appeals Google lost, at the Ninth Circuit (July 2025) and the Supreme Court (October 2025).
• 30% to 20% or less: the change to Google's standard Play Store commission in the March 2026 settlement.

What it changes for players and studios

For players on Android, three things should become visible over time: rival stores that install as easily as an ordinary app, more games offering their own payment options or web shops, and fewer "this file might harm your device" warnings for approved stores.

For studios, the change is mostly about margins. A mobile publisher selling $100 million of in-app purchases on Android used to hand about $30 million to Google. Under the new structure, the bill is lower, and it can be lower still for a studio that sends players to its own web shop. Expect Korean and Chinese publishers, who earn a large share of their mobile revenue on Android, to move fast.

WGC's take, and what to watch

The irony is hard to miss. Epic lost most of its case against Apple, whose store is famously closed, and won everything against Google, whose system was supposed to be open. A jury simply did not believe that "you can always sideload" was a real alternative for ordinary players.

What to watch next:

• Rival stores on Android: whether the Epic Games Store and others actually win players once installing them is painless.
• Pricing: whether publishers pass the savings on as cheaper currency packs or keep them as profit.
• Apple's turn: the US Supreme Court is reviewing the contempt ruling in Epic's other case (see our Epic v. Apple explainer).

There is also a lesson for regulators. Europe, Japan and Korea all wrote new laws to open app stores. In the United States, the biggest change came instead from an old-fashioned antitrust trial and twelve ordinary citizens on a jury.

The 30% era on Android lasted more than a decade. It ended with a game about building forts.