Last year, the top game Fortnite of Epic Games withdrew from the App Store της Apple και της Google, αφού οι προγραμματιστές κυκλοφόρησαν ένα νέο σύστημα πληρωμών που παρέκαμπτε τα συστήματα πληρωμών και τις προμήθειες market of large companies.
Shortly afterwards, Epic filed antitrust lawsuits against Apple and Google. The leaked court documents reveal that, before the antitrust lawsuits were filed, Google attempted to acquire Epic Games.
The court document was first released by The Verge and this is Epic Games' lawsuit against Google in the United States. Epic Games has a similar lawsuit against Google in Australia.
In the document [PDF], Epic claims that Google has been threatened by its plans to bypass its official supply to the Google Play Store by distributing Fortnite through other channels. To address these concerns, Google reportedly considered buying "part or all of Epic Games" to get developers out of the way.
Google has gone so far as to share its monopoly profits with business partners to secure their agreement to restrict competition, and has developed a series of in-house "contamination" projects perceived by Epic and others' efforts to offer to consumers and developers competing alternatives. "He even considered buying part or all of Epic to combat this threat," Epic said in a court statement.
Google also allegedly used contractual and technical barriers to make it difficult for users to download Epic Games apps to their devices. Used to block OEMs, like her OnePlus, from striking deals with Epic Games effectively cutting off access for users to install and update Epic Games apps without using the Google Play Store.
Additionally, Epic Games claims it was offered a "special deal" by Google to release Fortnite on the Play Store as another measure to stop its sideloading efforts. companys. When making the offer, senior Google Play executives reportedly admitted that sideloading would be a "terrible experience" and warned of the "15+ steps" users would have to go through to install the Epic Games app if the company did not accept the agreement.
Epic Games rejected Google's special deal, choosing to distribute Fortnite for Android through Epic's website and through a partnership with Samsung.
In addition to the legal battle with Epic Games, Google "won" another antitrust lawsuit last month from attorneys general of the USA in 36 states and Washington. As with the Epic Games lawsuits, the attorneys general allege that Android is far less open than Google claims, restricting third-party app stores and discouraging direct downloads of apps.
