Epic Games has prevailed in their lawsuit over Google.
As reported by Insider Gaming, this lawsuit went on for three years. While Epic’s similar lawsuit against Apple, and the regulation around Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard King, were more visible, this was no less important.
Epic’s suit vs both Apple and Google were essentially about the same thing; allowing Epic to sell their products and services on their own terms. And the terms Epic preferred was to be able to put up their own store, not having to pay fees to be hosted on the official Apple and Google stores.
Epic Games shared this statement on their website:
“Today’s verdict is a win for all app developers and consumers around the world,” Epic Games said in a statement on its website.
Over the course of the trial we saw evidence that Google was willing to pay billions of dollars to stifle alternative app stores by paying developers to abandon their own store efforts and direct distribution plans, and offering highly lucrative agreements with device manufacturers in exchange for excluding competing app stores.”
This win also raises questions about Epic’s case vs Apple. In 2021, California judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers ruled that Epic failed to prove Apple had a monopoly over their store, and ruled in favor of Apple for nine out of ten counts. Both the Apple and Google case are going to appeals. However, Epic vs Apple was brought to the Supreme Court in July 2023.
While Google is claiming that the situation between Apple’s and Google’s app stores are different, the effects across the markets are very related. Apple still makes a lot of business on iOS over Google Play, so if they aren’t required to open up like Google, they will continue to pocket the lion’s share of profits on the store.
The US courts have to also consider what’s going on in other parts of the world. The EU is forcing new rules to allow third parties to launch their own stores on Android and iOS devices.
If these American judges make decisions that don’t allow the same thing for American consumers, it will have an adverse effect for the US mobile market. And, of course, these decisions will affect Epic’s and Microsoft’s plans to enter mobile by using the EU rules for their own third party stores.
These decisions could make the difference for these game companies to be worth a little bit more billions of dollars. Subsequently, that means the livelihoods of many game developers are on the line as well.
