“Resolve a question”. Google offered Epic Games almost $150 billion

November 10, 02:05 Share:

Google offered Epic Games almost $150 billion (Photo: REUTERS/Andrew Kelly)

During the hearing of Google's case against Epic Games over the latter's antitrust lawsuit, interesting details emerged regarding the tech giant's attempts to resolve the dispute surrounding the Play Market app store.

In court, Google representatives confirmed that the company offered Epic Games a $147 million deal to launch its hit game Fortnite in the Android app store, The Verge writes.

Google Vice President of Play Partnerships Purnimi Kochikar said the agreement would provide money over a three-year period that would end in 2021. The agreement was approved and submitted to Epic, but the game publisher rejected the offer, she said.

The purpose of the deal was to avoid what Google says in internal documents “ risk of infection”. The point is that other game developers ( including Blizzard, Valve, Sony and Nintendo) could follow the example of Epic, which launched Fortnite on Android in 2018 directly through its website and sold in-game currency, bypassing the Play Store. Due to the company's actions, Google was losing profits from commissions on in-app purchases.

According to Google's estimates, which were demonstrated in court, the company estimated losses due to the absence of Fortnite in Play at 130-250 million dollars, and losses in the event that other players in the gaming market bypass payment of the commission amounted to up to 3.6 billion dollars. Epic is using these documents to support allegations against Google of an illegal monopoly.

Earlier, NV Techno wrote that Epic Games, the developer of the popular game Fortnite, was suing Google and Apple due to the tech giants’ ban on purchasing money in the game directly from the developer – bypassing their app stores and, accordingly, without paying a commission. Earlier this year, Apple won an appeal upholding its App Store policies in Epic Games' antitrust lawsuit.

Read also: Microsoft and 35 US states supported the manufacturer of Fortnite in a dispute with Apple The creators of Fortnite raised $144 million for humanitarian aid to Ukraine

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