I don't believe you can make money on F-droid, and Google is unlikely to tolerate you turning your Play Store app into a seondary app store (or if they did tolerate it, they might switch at any moment).
Well yea, F Droid is made for mostly open source games and apps. Huge deal breaker for games using proprietary engines (since the lions share is on Unity) and doesn't want to make it's assets open source.
This theoretical "steam of Android" would work similarly to how desktop steam works. Allows sale of proprietary premium games, Bans f2p games in the beginning (inevitably opening up once it's culture is established), does some QA to ensure certain features (e.g. Input, compatibility, no viruses, etc.), has discovery algorithms for consumers, user reviews, forums, etc. It could even allow adult games like Steam, but it may also ban those for a while to establish culture (the porn black hole is a real, scary phenomenon).
>Google is unlikely to tolerate you turning your Play Store app into a seondary app store (or if they did tolerate it, they might switch at any moment).
I think it'd be fine in the beginning if you banned f2p apps (which most of google's revenue comes from), but yes. I'd wonder how big it'd get before we get the next Apple v. Epic debacle over such matters.
If you, as Valve, launch Steam and take your own payments within Steam - which I suspect Google would quash instantly - you would build up an install base that "owns" value in your store (modulo weaselly subscriber agreements).
When Google does Google things and kills your popular product, perhaps citing that it is a competing app store, you now have millions of angry gamers. Maybe they cannot sue you, but they can certainly abandon your market on other platforms.
Sure, I have no doubt about that. But you wouldn't be on their app store to begin with. Or at least, not expect to be on the store for long (I don't think any of the alternative app stores I used were on the play store). That does lose you some marketing, but you're already swimming up a creek as is trying to sell premium games to begin with.
Now, can Google remove your apk regardless? I haven't heard of a case, but it's not impossible for Google to her in the way. The much less publicized lawsuit from Epic involved Google blocking Epic from negotiating with Fortnite pre-installs with OEMs, so Google won't just sit by and let their money walk (even if they were leaving it on the table to begin with). Not a bad bet if you're determined, but it's not easy street even if you find your audience.
