According to Bloomberg’s report, Google has stepped up its antitrust fight against Epic Games, the developer of the record-breaking game Fortnite, with its release on Android last year. Allegedly, Epic Games avoids Google Play billing.
Google alleges that Epic deliberately violated the developer agreement by updating Fortnite with a hotfix in 2020 to avoid paying Google Play developer fees and unfairly enriched itself by taking advantage of Google. Also, Google says that Epic is launching at the expense of violating user security.
Demanding compensation and penalties, Google said Epic suffered losses as a result of the breach of contract and lost global services revenues. Google officials on the subject made the following statement:
“The Google Play ecosystem has suffered as the hotfix potentially exposed a vulnerability that could be used for even worse purposes.”
According to the indictment, players who download the “unapproved” version of Fortnite can make some of their spendings on Android independently of Google Play. This causes Google to continue to suffer losses. Failure to fix this situation means that Epic Games continues to violate the contract. Despite all these claims, no statement was made by Epic Games.
Epic sued Apple Inc. and Google separately last year, accusing them of maintaining an anti-competitive bilateral agreement on mobile app distribution. In the lawsuit, Epic Games was found to be justified by the court on the grounds that Apple’s policies were inconsistent. This lawsuit is similarly made up of Google’s counter-claims, and the outcome is still unclear.
Google was also the subject of a series of investigations launched in July by the attorneys general of three dozen states. This investigation also included the allegation that the company abused its authority in sales and distributions made through Google Play.
It is a matter of curiosity how Epic Games will respond to the allegations of Google, which has experienced multiple investigations and lawsuits in the same period. For now, all we know is that the lawyers of both sides are working feverishly and fighting a legal battle.
