In the documents, Epic claims that Google was afraid of Epic’s moves to dodge the 30% commission charged on payments through Google Play and offer Fortnite (and…
WTF?! While its ongoing feud with Apple is rather well documented, Epic Games is also in the middle of an antitrust complaint against Google over the removal of Fortnite from the Play Store. According to newly released court documents, Google at some point considered simply buying out the company in order to quash legal action. In the documents, Epic claims that Google was afraid of Epic’s moves to dodge the 30% commission charged on payments through Google Play and offer Fortnite (and its very lucrative associated microtransactions) directly, quoting an internal document describing Epic’s plans as a “contagion” that could spread to other developers and platforms. In Epic’s own words: Google has gone so far as to share its monopoly profits with business partners to secure their agreement to fence out competition, has developed a series of internal projects to address the “contagion” it perceived from efforts by Epic and others to offer consumers and developers competitive alternatives, and has even contemplated buying some or all of Epic to squelch this threat.
