Why was Google running so scared that it allegedly resorted to these tactics? Apparently, it believed billions of dollars were at stake. Apple trial, you’ll see Epic was planning to spring a legal trap for Google long before Apple became the primary target. A year later, Epic had to defend the idea that it was the one asking for a “special billing exception,” a sequence of events that appears to have thwarted Epic’s original plans - if you read item #38 in my big story about the best emails from the Epic v. It also suggests Google, not Epic, might have been the one originally offering special deals. That suggests Google had early access to Epic’s sideloading plans, despite CEO Tim Sweeney’s February 2018 instructions to his team to “SAY NOTHING TILL IT SHIPS”: Intriguingly, that would have been the month before Epic announced it would ditch the Play Store. Google allegedly tried to convince Epic to take the deal by pointing out the “frankly abysmal” 15+ step process gamers would have to endure to sideload Fortnite on Android. It’s not clear Google actually approached TencentĪnd that’s on top of the dealings Google had with Epic directly in July 2018, when Alphabet’s CFO and other senior Google executives reportedly offered up to $208 million in “special benefits” over three years to bring Fortnite to Google Play - in what would effectively be Google taking 25 percent of the game’s revenue instead of the standard 30 percent. The suggestions were “to either (a) buy Epic shares from Tencent to get more control over Epic”, or “(b) join up with Tencent to buy 100% of Epic,” the unredacted complaint reads. ![]() Google even suggested the idea of buying Epic to remove the threat - going behind Epic’s back and approaching minority owner Tencent, the Chinese tech giant that currently has a 40 percent stake in Epic. The same presentation shows that Google believed that the new RSAs successfully eliminated the “risk of app developer contagion” noting that there was “no risk” under the “Current Premier tier”. ![]() In a presentation prepared by and presented to senior Google Play executives, Google noted that in the short time since the beginning of the program, over 200 million new devices were covered. Google called it “Project Agave,” according to Epic.Īpparently, Google viewed the so-called “Premier Device Program” as a huge success: If those tactics sound familiar, it might be because 36 state attorneys general alleged that Google used the exact same hush-hush deals against Samsung’s Galaxy Store, in the antitrust lawsuit they filed against Google in July. Nokia phone maker HMD Global signed up too, as did Sony, Sharp, Xiaomi, and another unnamed brand. OnePlus sister brands Oppo and Vivo were also onboard, with owner BBK committing the vast majority of its phones to the exclusive program. Remember when Google allegedly forced OnePlus to break off a deal that would have seen the Fortnite Launcher preinstalled on phones? LG and Motorola reportedly struck a deal where they got 12 percent of the search revenue from their customers, and up to 6 percent of the money they spent in the Play Store, to be exclusive to Google. ![]() “Project Hug” and the “Premier Device Program”
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