At the court hearing, Google confirmed that it offered Epic $147 million to launch the multiplayer shooter Fortnite on the Google Play store.

Google's vice president of Play partnerships, Purnima Kochikar, said the deal was approved and presented to Epic, but the other party rejected it. The agreement provided for payment of the full amount within three years. Google wanted to prevent the game from being placed outside the official Android app store. This type of posting deprives Google of commissions on in-game purchases.

Epic released Fortnite on Android in 2018 directly through its website, bypassing Google Play. This allowed the company to sell Fortnite's in-game currency, V-Bucks, without paying royalties to Google. In 2020, Epic announced it would launch the game on Google Play, responding to the tech giant's persistent warnings to users about potential security issues when running third-party software.

The antitrust lawsuit, which is still pending in court, states that Epic's initial decision sent Google into a panic. The corporation fears a "risk of infection" if other game developers, including Blizzard, Valve, Sony and Nintendo, follow Epic's lead. So Google tried to prevent this from happening by offering special benefits and even buying Epic.

Court documents indicate that Google is concerned that all of its top developers will likely leave Google Play within a few years of the Epic decision. This course of events will cost the IT giant billions of dollars in revenue. Fortnite's absence from the Google Store could result in lost revenue of between $130 million and $250 million, followed by a widespread loss of $3.6 billion if a mass exodus of developers does occur.

“We just wanted developers to choose Play,” Kochikar said in his testimony. He noted that hosting games on the service would be worth all the investment.

bbabo.Net