Epic Lawsuit Claims Google Paid Activision Blizzard $360 Million To Keep Play Store Rivals. Google forked over around $360 million to Activision Blizzard to keep the struggling publisher from directly competing against the Play Store.
According to Google court records reviewed by Reuters, this agreement was one of at least 24 inked by the search giant as part of its Project Hug programme. Epic Games and Google are currently engaged in a lengthy antitrust litigation, with the case’s central focus being the financial specifics of Project Hug, which evolved into the Apps and Games Velocity Program.
The studio claims Google spent millions on incentives to retain major app developers in Play Store in 2021. This week, the public saw the first version of Epic’s lawsuit without any redactions, revealing information regarding the Apps and Games Velocity Program that had previously been kept under wraps.
Besides Nintendo and Ubisoft, the court papers claim that Google also struck partnerships with Riot Games and a number of other game developers. Epic claims that Google paid Riot over $30 million to “block” the League of Legends developer from pursuing its own “in-house app store” activities.
As of this writing, Engadget has not heard back from Riot Games. The lawsuit claims Google was aware that by partnering with Activision, the publisher would “abandon its plans to build a competing app store.” “something Activision strongly denies.
Epic lawsuit claims Google paid Activision Blizzard $360 million to prevent Play Store rival https://t.co/4NRAQ7FBWX pic.twitter.com/elXqfaEIox
— Engadget (@engadget) November 19, 2022
A representative for Activision told Reuters, “Google never contacted us, pressed us, or made us agree not to compete with Google Play.” “The accusations made by Epic are completely baseless.” After Epic “mischaracterized” Google’s Apps and Games Velocity Program, Google retaliated.
In response to Epic’s claims, a Google spokeswoman told Engadget, “Programs like Project Hug create incentives for developers to deliver perks and early access to Google Play users when they release new or updated content.”
“The programme demonstrates that Google Play is a worthy competitor to its many peers in the app and digital content distribution market.
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