Epic Games announced today that it has entered into a long-term partnership with telecommunications service provider Telefonica. Under the terms of the partnership, the Epic Games Store will now be more accessible to the owners of Telefonica Android devices. The Store will also come pre-installed on compatible Android devices in Telefonica’s network, including “Samsung devices in Spain, UK, Germany and Spanish-speaking Latam.”
This new partnership is an extension of Epic’s efforts to make its games and store more available to consumers on mobile, bypassing platform owners’ stores and payment mechanisms. Epic has also recently sued Google and Samsung for allegedly making it prohibitively difficult for gamers to install the EGS on their devices. Telefonica devices coming with the Epic Game Store pre-installed would help ease the install process.
Telefonica and Epic have collaborated in the past, with the former being the first to introduce Direct Carrier Billing to the Epic Games Store. Lorena Itziar Senador-Gómez Lázaro, Telefonica’s director of partnerships and devices, said in a statement, “With this collaboration with Epic Games we strengthen our relationship and go one step further in delivering high-quality, accessible and innovative digital experiences to our customers.
Michael Modon, Epic’s senior director of growth partnerships, added, “Thanks to our partnership with Telefonica, players will now be able to access the Epic Games Store, Fortnite and soon games from third party developers directly on their Android device. We look forward to expanding our collaboration with Telefonica to bring even more benefits to players.”
