Google wanted to “crush” Epic Games through buyout claim lawsuit

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Fortnite Season 5 Characters — Apple isn’t alone in facing a Fortnite studio lawsuit (Photo: Epic Games)

Epic Games says Google has considered buying the studio in an attempt to stifle competition.

The lawsuit between Epic Games and Apple may have been what dominated the headlines for some time (mainly because of all confidential information he leaked), but it’s not the only one Epic is involved in.

Since Google removed Fortnite from its Google Play app store for the same reasons Apple did, Epic filed a lawsuit against it as well. Recently, Epic amended the lawsuit to further substantiate its case after it was linked to another multi-state lawsuit against the Google Play store for violations of antitrust laws.

According to new, unwritten complaints in the lawsuit, Epic claims that Google considered buying Epic Games outright, either by buying the shares of Tencent (Tencent has a 40% stake in Epic Games) or by s ‘partnering with him to fully buy out Epic.

Epic CEO Tim Sweeney in a statement on Twitter openly called it a hostile takeover attempt in response to Fortnite’s launch outside the Google Play store, “Rather than compete by offering developers a better offer than 30%, they wanted to agree to crush Epic instead. ‘

Google has calculated a potential revenue loss of $ 6 billion resulting from Epic’s competition with Google Play and leading the way for other companies. Rather than compete by giving the developers a better deal than 30%, they instead wanted to agree to crush Epic.

– Tim Sweeney (@TimSweeneyEpic) August 19, 2021

Additionally, Epic claims that Google paid hundreds of millions of dollars to developers, such as Activision Blizzard, to trick them into keeping their games exclusive on the Play Store.

This initiative was originally called Project Hug, but is now called Apps and Games Velocity Program. Epic alleges that this was also done in response to its initial Android version of Fortnite.

Originally, Fortnite was not part of the Google Play Store. Android owners had to download a separate launcher instead, which essentially meant that Epic didn’t have to pay Google a 30% revenue cut. He eventually added Fortnite correctly to Google’s app store, but he says Google was concerned that other developers would try the same and therefore launched the Project Hug program.

“These deals allow Google to keep its monopoly behavior publicly unchallenged,” Epic writes, “But Epic is not interested in any side deals that could benefit Epic alone while leaving Google’s anti-competitive restrictions intact; instead, Epic is focused on opening up the Android ecosystem to the benefit of all developers and consumers. ‘

According to Google’s own internal documents, it appears the program has been a great success for the company. By the end of 2020, he had signed agreements with the vast majority of the developers he had targeted.

And in a statement to The Verge, a Google spokesperson pretty much defended programs like this, saying they were a sign of healthy competition.

“Google Play competes with other app stores on Android devices and competing operating systems for the attention of developers and businesses. We’ve long had programs in place that support top developers with improved resources and investments to help them reach more customers on Google Play. These programs are a sign of healthy competition between operating systems and application stores and are of great benefit to developers. ‘

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