Epic Games

For years, Epic Games, the creator of the wildly popular video game Fortnite, has been fighting Apple and Google for a bigger piece of the app economy. The private game and software developer filed lawsuits against the tech giants, arguing that their app stores were built around monopolistic policies. In December, a federal jury in San Francisco agreed, declaring Google’s app store an illegal monopoly. But Epic wants more than just more revenue from the two dominant stores: it plans to launch its own app store for both Android and iOS devices by the end of this year, with a goal of offering game developers a better revenue split and charging lower commissions. That new store became more likely in March, when Apple allowed Epic to use iPhone tools to start a competing store after initially blocking the company from doing so. With Disney in February buying a $1.5 billion equity stake in Epic, the entertainment behemoth’s largest investment in the gaming industry, 2024 is shaping up to be a banner year for the North Carolina-based company.