Give it courtroom clash between Google and Epic Games Interesting details emerge. Big G, for example, confirmed that he had offered 147 million dollars to convince Tim Sweeney’s company to launch the hugely popular Fortnite on the Play Store. The (rejected) agreement was intended to stem a phenomenon that could have created quite a few problems to the store and checkouts of the Mountain View giantor that of downloadable applications from different sources from the aforementioned Play Store.
For those who aren’t aware, the Battle Royale landed on Android in 2018, but at the time to download it all you had to do was go to on the Epic Games website. No, not on the Play Store. This allowed the company to sell directly i V-Bucks (the in-game currency) therefore without having to pay commissions to Google as required by the rules of its digital store. Epic Games itself then had to give up in 2020, due to “constant and annoying security pop-ups” that informed the user of the dangers of sideloading.
Google and the fear of the domino effect
However, returning to Epic’s initial strategy, we learn from the antitrust lawsuit currently underway that had thrown Big G into a panic. In fact, the latter feared “a risk of contagion“, that is, he was afraid that other major developers – such as Blizzard, Valve, Sony and Nintendo – followed Epic’s lead. A “revolution” of this magnitude would have cost Google billions of dollars in revenues.
In court, Google stated that at the time there was concern filtering through the Mountain View offices due to developers’ reduced interest in the Play Store, also due to the constant preference for rival. That is, the Apple App Store for iPhone and iPad. Epic Games instead believes that Big G – fearing competition – acted unfairly and made its Play Store an illegal monopoly.
