Epic Games has won a key victory in their legal battle against Google over access to Android.
As reported by Video Games Chronicle, a US judge has issued a permanent injunction in this regard. The injunction requires that Google follow these new provisions starting November 1, 2024:
- Google will not be allowed to pay developers to launch apps first or exclusively through the Play Store
- It will be barred from offering manufacturers or carriers incentives to pre-install Google Play (or to not pre-install rival stores) on new devices
- The company won’t be able to force app makers to use Google Play Billing
- It may not require a developer to set a price based on whether Google Play is used
- Google won’t be able to restrict developers from pointing users to external payment options outside of the Play Store
Google, as you may have expected, plans to appeal the verdict, but it increasingly looks likely that app developers will now have their way on Android platforms moving forward, at least for some time.
Now, this may sound confusing for even longtime Android users, as for a long time Google allowed users to sideload apps on Android. Google has not exactly done a complete 180 on this policy, but they have been ‘altering the deal,’ for developers and end users. You can get a small idea of how Google has made small changes that have made this difficult for everyone else here.
And indeed, Google has not intervened in certain situations where their openness does affect their bottomline. For example, Android OEMs like Samsung have been offering their own app stores for years now, directly competing with Google Play. Some companies, like Huawei and Amazon, have even forked Android to make their own custom OS, but these OSes can still sideload and run Android apps.
In any case, this is another step forward for Epic Games to regain lost ground in mobile, particularly to bring back Fortnite on Android in a very big way. Subsequently, other players like Microsoft also stand to benefit from these changes that Epic Games is fighting for on behalf of the industry in general.
Microsoft also wants to make their own mobile app store, where they may offer things like Xbox Game Pass Cloud, as well the mobile games they do own, like Minecraft and Candy Crush Saga. Given how rapidly these legal victories have been changing things, they may bring the next true big revolution in the video game industry that VR and AI promised but have yet to deliver.
