Five years ago, Epic Games openly challenged Apple’s App Store and Google’s Play Store with Fortnite.30% platform profit share After the introduction of the "Apple tax" and the "Google tax" (commonly known as the "Apple tax" and the "Google tax"), the war over the monopoly of software market payment platforms has now seen the direct participation of two major game engine giants.
Unity and Epic Games recently announced that they will launch their own web stores and related payment solutions. The goal is to help game developers more conveniently provide "official website top-up" (Direct-to-Consumer, DTC) options, allowing players to purchase game content or virtual currency directly on the developer's website, thereby bypassing the high commission fees of Apple and Google platforms.
Is regulatory pressure working? Apple and Google's payment monopoly defenses are weakening
This move reflects the intense pressure from regulators in the European Union (EU) and the United States in recent years regarding Apple and Google's payment monopoly. Five years of legal battles and public opinion have forced the two platforms to gradually relax their policies.
In May of this year, the U.S. Federal Court of Appeals rejected Apple's request and upheld the previous court order allowing developers to guide users to third-party payment. This ruling forced Apple to adjust its policy, and Fortnite was able to be launched on the U.S. App Store.Relisting.
In fact, over the past few years, more and more games (especially cross-platform games) have begun to offer official website top-up options, allowing players to choose to pay directly to the developer, and usually get a more favorable price.
Epic Games Store expands its technology offerings, launching a web store directly for gamers
The first to take action was Epic Games, which announced on October 2nd the official launch of mobile and PC versions powered by Epic Games Store technology.Epic Web Store (Epic Web Store), which allows developers to use this service to sell game content directly to players.
Unity updates its engine with integrated stores and partners with Stripe to launch cross-platform payment solutions
Then on October 22, Unity also announced that its game engineMake an update, allowing developers to use a unified digital store to directly manage the commercial operations and in-app purchases of their games. Developers will be able to manage payments, pricing, and real-time operations across mobile app stores, PC, and web stores through a single dashboard.
In addition, Unity recently announced a new partnership with payment provider Stripe. The two parties will jointly launch a web store solution for Unity developers that also supports cross-platform operations.
With the entry of search engine companies, the DTC model may accelerate its popularity and impact platform revenue.
The successive launches of Unity and Epic Games, two major engine vendors, in their own web stores and payment services are significant. While the DTC model has long existed, for many small and medium-sized developers, building and maintaining a secure, nationally compliant payment system requires additional technical resources and costs.
Today, engine service providers have directly integrated this functionality into their development toolchains or service platforms, significantly lowering the barrier for developers to offer DTC options. Considering the extensive reach of Unity and Epic Games in the global game development landscape, this move is likely to accelerate the adoption of the DTC model.
In its second-quarter 2025 financial report, overseas casual game company Playtika revealed that 25.3% of its revenue came from direct-to-consumer (DTC) sales, with plans to increase this percentage to 40%. Therefore, with the entry of engine vendors, it is expected that the payment channel revenue of the Apple App Store and Google Play Store will face even greater challenges in the future.
