Google’s $147 million provide to Epic Video games: a determined bid to deliver Fortnite to the Play Retailer

Briefly: The Epic vs Google antitrust trial is revealing loads of shocking particulars concerning the pair’s relationship, together with Google proposing a $147 million deal to launch Fortnite on the Play Retailer. Not solely was the search big anxious concerning the income misplaced because of the battle royale sport’s absence from the shop, nevertheless it was additionally involved about different builders following Epic’s lead.

Again in August 2018, Epic Video games determined to bypass Google’s 30% Play Retailer income reduce by distributing the Android model of Fortnite through an installer that could possibly be downloaded from the corporate’s web site. CEO Tim Sweeney described Google’s income take as a “excessive value” within the trade, particularly as Android is an open platform the place Google doesn’t distribute or handle all of the {hardware}.

As reported by The Verge, a Google doc reveals the corporate listed “probably the most principled arguments” it may make to persuade Epic to place Fortnite on its retailer. These included “The set up friction just isn’t solely a foul expertise, however we all know from our information that it’ll drastically restrict their attain.” One other learn: “The [Play] retailer will nonetheless entice billions of customers who will seek for Fortnite and run into deadends that are not clear methods to resolve.”

It appears these arguments did not do the trick, so Google provided Epic $147 million to place Fortnite on the Play Retailer, paid over three years and ending in 2021.

That is some huge cash, however Lawrence Koh, the previous head of Google Play’s video games enterprise improvement, defined on the stand that Google projected Fortnite’s absence from the shop may end in a direct income loss between $130 million and $250 million. However the largest concern was different builders resembling Blizzard following Epic’s lead and providing their cell video games as direct downloads. It was estimated that this could result in a “downstream impression” of between $550 million and $3.6 billion in income loss.

In 2020, 18 months after the sport first appeared on Android, Epic begrudgingly allowed Fortnite onto the Play Retailer. “Google places software program downloadable outdoors of Google Play at an obstacle, by way of technical and enterprise measures resembling scary, repetitive safety pop-ups for downloaded and up to date software program, restrictive producer and provider agreements and dealings, Google public relations characterizing third-party software program sources as malware, and new efforts resembling Google Play Defend to outright block software program obtained outdoors the Google Play Retailer,” Epic mentioned in an announcement on the time. “Due to this, we have launched Fortnite for Android on the Google Play Retailer.”

Fortnite solely lasted 5 months on the Play Retailer earlier than it was booted by Google over the introduction of Epic Direct Funds. This feature allowed gamers to pay Epic instantly for in-app purchases, bypassing the 30% reduce taken by Google whereas additionally giving customers a 20% low cost. The transfer led to Epic’s antitrust lawsuit towards Google and, individually, Apple.