Google's $147 million offer to Epic Games: a desperate bid to bring Fortnite to the Play...

[midian182]

In brief: The Epic vs Google antitrust trial is revealing plenty of surprising details about the pair's relationship, including Google proposing a $147 million deal to launch Fortnite on the Play Store. Not only was the search giant worried about the revenue lost due to the battle royale game's absence from the store, but it was also concerned about other developers following Epic's lead.

Back in August 2018, Epic Games decided to circumvent Google's 30% Play Store revenue cut by distributing the Android version of Fortnite via an installer that could be downloaded from the company's website. CEO Tim Sweeney described Google's revenue take as a "high cost" in the industry, especially as Android is an open platform where Google does not distribute or manage all the hardware.

As reported by The Verge, a Google document shows the company listed "the most principled arguments" it could make to convince Epic to put Fortnite on its store. These included "The install friction is not only a bad experience, but we know from our data that it will drastically limit their reach." Another read: "The [Play] store will still attract billions of users who will search for Fortnite and run into deadends that aren't clear how to resolve."

It seems these arguments didn't do the trick, so Google offered Epic $147 million to put Fortnite on the Play Store, paid over three years and ending in 2021.

That's a lot of money, but Lawrence Koh, the former head of Google Play's games business development, explained on the stand that Google projected Fortnite's absence from the store could result in a direct revenue loss between $130 million and $250 million. But the biggest fear was other developers such as Blizzard following Epic's lead and offering their mobile games as direct downloads. It was estimated that this would lead to a "downstream impact" of between $550 million and $3.6 billion in revenue loss.

In 2020, 18 months after the game first appeared on Android, Epic begrudgingly allowed Fortnite onto the Play Store. "Google puts software downloadable outside of Google Play at a disadvantage, through technical and business measures such as scary, repetitive security pop-ups for downloaded and updated software, restrictive manufacturer and carrier agreements and dealings, Google public relations characterizing third-party software sources as malware, and new efforts such as Google Play Protect to outright block software obtained outside the Google Play Store," Epic said in a statement at the time. "Because of this, we've launched Fortnite for Android on the Google Play Store."

Fortnite only lasted five months on the Play Store before it was booted by Google over the introduction of Epic Direct Payments. This option allowed players to pay Epic directly for in-app purchases, bypassing the 30% cut taken by Google while also giving users a 20% discount. The move led to Epic's antitrust lawsuit against Google and, separately, Apple.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/100802-google-147-million-offer-epic-games-desperate-bid.html

 

[havok585]

F*CK google and their wannabe APPLE monopoly on what the END User wants.

Imagine if Microsoft today said, you are no longer able to install any kind of software/app OUTSIDE the MS store.

This is the SH*TSTORM that google is doing on END users phones (the hardware is not made by google, aka you do whatever you want with where the software goes, they think they are Apple).

Blizzard, epic, Activision, they should be able to circumvent, hassle-free where their software can be installed on the END users phones, they do not need to be installed always on play store.

The reason this thing is so convoluted and messy is because google wants the big cake always and nobody should be able mess with their plans.

Like I typed previously, try to see this from the perspective if Microsoft tried to do this with our PC's. It wont happen. The fact that Google managed to get away this far all these years is just pathetic.

 

[GodisanAtheist]

F*CK google and their wannabe APPLE monopoly on what the END User wants.

Imagine if Microsoft today said, you are no longer able to install any kind of software/app OUTSIDE the MS store.

This is the SH*TSTORM that google is doing on END users phones (the hardware is not made by google, aka you do whatever you want with where the software goes, they think they are Apple).

Blizzard, epic, Activision, they should be able to circumvent, hassle-free where their software can be installed on the END users phones, they do not need to be installed always on play store.

The reason this thing is so convoluted and messy is because google wants the big cake always and nobody should be able mess with their plans.

Like I typed previously, try to see this from the perspective if Microsoft tried to do this with our PC's. It wont happen. The fact that Google managed to get away this far all these years is just pathetic.

-Wait, based on the article it sounds like you absolutely can download and install Fortnite through Epic's website.

I don't think Google ever blocked that (in fact I can go to fortnite.com right now and download the game straight to my Pixel).

Fortnite came out on the play store cause Epic was probably running into the EGS problem: no one was buying their game if it wasn't on the most popular store on the platform (Play store).

Then Epic decided to bypass the Play Store rules, got their app pulled, and decided to throw a fit about it.

I think you got the situation almost exactly backwards, Epic wants to dictate what Google can do with their store, Google isn't dictating what Epic can do with their game. Google (correctly) puts up warnings in the event people sideload apps, the potential for scams there is huge.

 

[RandomWAN]

You can side-load apps on most phones, but Google Android makes it take additional steps and throws a bunch of warnings at the user, which disincentivizes the common user from installing. Epic then acquiesced to Google for putting it on the Play store, but then did an end run around Google's cut by offering direct purchases in game, bypassing the Play store system. Epic should have sued them from go if they were going to play this game.

The bigger problem is you get Google's version of Android layered with the phone manufacturer's UI crap shoved down your throat from go and this enables Google to keep people tied to their Play store and raking in money.

 

[kapital98]

You can side-load apps on most phones, but Google Android makes it take additional steps and throws a bunch of warnings at the user, which disincentivizes the common user from installing. Epic then acquiesced to Google for putting it on the Play store, but then did an end run around Google's cut by offering direct purchases in game, bypassing the Play store system. Epic should have sued them from go if they were going to play this game.

The bigger problem is you get Google's version of Android layered with the phone manufacturer's UI crap shoved down your throat from go and this enables Google to keep people tied to their Play store and raking in money.

Unfortunately for Epic, they couldn't sue in advance of this decision. They wouldn't have damages (only hypotheticals). Google would have immediately filed suit for summary judgment stating it was moot until there were damages.

This is why basically every company would rather go along with whatever Google/Apple wants than fight back. They simply can't afford the upfront cost. And, to put this in context, these business moves had a massive impact on Fortnite's marketshare and profitability.

 

[toooooot]

It means they know that the amount of skins people would purchase through playstore would be worth way above this sum.

 

[jpvalverde85]

Imagine if Microsoft today said, you are no longer able to install any kind of software/app OUTSIDE the MS store.

Well... that's what happens when you buy a cheap laptop with Windows S, be careful!

 

[Sean T]

F*CK google and their wannabe APPLE monopoly on what the END User wants.

Imagine if Microsoft today said, you are no longer able to install any kind of software/app OUTSIDE the MS store.

This is the SH*TSTORM that google is doing on END users phones (the hardware is not made by google, aka you do whatever you want with where the software goes, they think they are Apple).

Blizzard, epic, Activision, they should be able to circumvent, hassle-free where their software can be installed on the END users phones, they do not need to be installed always on play store.

The reason this thing is so convoluted and messy is because google wants the big cake always and nobody should be able mess with their plans.

Like I typed previously, try to see this from the perspective if Microsoft tried to do this with our PC's. It wont happen. The fact that Google managed to get away this far all these years is just pathetic.

Just curious your thoughts on the Xbox and PlayStation stores? Should they have to allow anyone to put software on their stores and allow those developers to bypass their payment system so that the store does not receive any money. If that was to happen, then it would cause the collapse of these stores. Every developer would bypass the store fee, resulting in the store brining in no revenue and not paying for the costs to maintain it, the servers, storage, Internet, etc. required to run it.

It is no different than Walmart. What if the manufacturers were allowed to put products on the shelves in Walmart and not pay Walmart for that access. Apple is unique in that you have no other option than to use their store. This has some positives and some negatives. Google gives you the option to bypass their store.
Ultimately, the end user can change to an Android where they have more open control of where they can download software.

This Epic case against Google and Apple could have substantial impacts on the market. I suspect the courts will side predominately with Google/Apple because of the ripples it would cause across multiple markets (such as Xbox and PlayStation store) as well as smaller app store markets.