\n<\/p>\n
Google has confirmed in court that Epic was offered a $147 million deal to launch its hit game Fortnite<\/em> on Android\u2019s Google Play store. The deal, which Google\u2019s VP of Play partnerships Purnima Kochikar says was approved and presented to Epic but not accepted, would have seen the money dispensed over a three-year period of \u201cincremental funding\u201d (ending in 2021) to the games publisher. It was meant to stem a potential \u201ccontagion\u201d of popular apps bypassing Android\u2019s official store, and with it, Google\u2019s lucrative in-app purchase fees.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Epic launched Fortnite <\/em>on Android in 2018 directly through its website<\/a>, avoiding the Play store. That allowed it to sell Fortnite\u2019s <\/em>in-game currency V-Bucks without paying the commission required of Play Store apps. It relented in 2020<\/a>, saying that \u201cscary, repetitive security pop-ups\u201d and other factors had put it at a severe disadvantage. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n But in an antitrust lawsuit filed later that year<\/a> \u2014\u00a0and currently being argued<\/a> before a jury \u2014\u00a0it alleged its initial decision had thrown Google into a panic. It cited internal documents claiming Google feared a \u201ccontagion risk\u201d if other game developers (including Blizzard, Valve, Sony, and Nintendo) followed Epic\u2019s lead, and it claimed Google attempted to forestall it by offering special benefits or even buying Epic.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n The \u201ccontagion\u201d documents came up in court on Tuesday when Lawrence Koh, the now-former head of Google Play\u2019s games business development, took the stand. They forecasted Google\u2019s concerns<\/a> that virtually all top game developers could defect from Play within a couple of years of Epic\u2019s decision, costing Google a total of billions of dollars in revenue. Documents shown in court projected Fortnite\u2019s <\/em>absence could result in a direct revenue loss between $130 and $250 million and then a broader downstream loss of up to $3.6 billion if that massive defection took place.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Google\u2019s position is that it was <\/em>concerned about losing games on Play, but that there\u2019s nothing nefarious about that. \u201cWe just wanted developers to choose Play,\u201d Kochikar said in testimony \u2014 particularly when Apple\u2019s iOS was an alternative. And getting games on the service, Koh testified, \u201cwas the investment we thought was worth all the dollars.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Conversely, Epic is using these documents to argue that Google feared competition for Android app distribution and has maintained its Play store as an unlawful monopoly. This deal\u2019s existence doesn\u2019t prove that \u2014\u00a0but at the very least, it\u2019s an interesting look at how Google sees its games business.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n