Epic Games has finally achieved a victory in its ongoing legal battle against Google over its Google Play Store.
Today a jury unanimously agreed Google had turned its Play Store and billing services into an illegal monopoly. This is a major victory, especially given Epic lost against Apple in a very similar lawsuit back in 2021. According to The Verge, the jury decided Google had engaged in illegal activity with its Play Store and billing services, along with multiple other aspects of anti-competitive behavior.
Epic crafted its case by suggesting Google took part in secret deals with phone manufacturers and game developers to keep other app stores down, and as The Verge puts it, “run scared of the Fortnite developer.” Right now, it isn’t clear what exactly will result from this victory, however, Epic has pushed for every app developer to have the freedom to share their own app stores and billing services on Android, without needing to go through Google. This would have big implications in the gaming space if it came to fruition.
Firstly for Epic directly, the developer could continue selling V-Bucks to Fortnite players without paying the usage fee to employ Google’s billing services. This is something that the developer first implemented in 2020, leading to its removal from the Play Store. It would also be capable of expanding the Epic Games app marketplace on Android where users could download more mobile games than just Fortnite.
Similarly, other game devs would be able to factor the Google billing service fees out of their in-game purchases, instead choosing other options, and potentially bringing their games to new app stores on Android devices. Again, nothing has been decided yet by the courts that would make this possible.
While Epic has won this battle for now, Google has chosen to appeal the verdict, so don’t expect this legal battle to end anytime soon.
Update Dec. 11, 8:26pm CT: Epic Games has released a statement regarding the victory calling it a “win for all app developers and consumers around the world.”
The statement claims that during the trial evidence was shown that revealed Google was willing to pay billions of dollars to hinder the chances of alternate app stores. Epic continued, reaffirming their goals for the case.
“The evidence presented in this case demonstrates the urgent need for legislation and regulations that address Apple and Google strangleholds over smartphones, including with promising legislation in progress right now with the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumer Bill in the UK and the Digital Markets Act in the EU,” the statement reads.
