According to some documents related to the lawsuit by Epic Games against Google and Apple, Google had considered the acquisition of the company, presumably to crack down on the competition.
It’s been almost a year since Epic Games sued both Google and Apple for the removal of Fortnite from their respective digital stores. Looking into the lawsuit against Google, Epic argues in its complaint that when the company decided to evade Play Store requirements by making Fortnite available on Android devices via other channels, Google, sensing a threat to its revenue and therefore to its profits, has decided to take steps to crack down on competition. One of the possible measures to this end was the partial or total acquisition of Epic Games by Google itself. Let’s see the details below.
Google had considered the acquisition of Epic Games to maintain profits and monopoly
The document, written by Epic Games, reports the following:
Google’s persistent monopoly is the result of Google’s deliberate efforts to achieve and maintain it. Not content with the contractual and technical barriers it has carefully constructed to eliminate competition, Google uses its size, influence, power and money to induce third parties into anti-competitive deals that further strengthen those monopolies. For example, Google has gone so far as to share its profits with business partners to secure their deal to fence off the competition, and has developed a number of internal projects to address the perceived “contagion” from Epic and others’ efforts to deliver. to competitive alternative consumers and developers, and has even contemplated acquiring part or all of Epic to stifle this threat.
This was unbeknownst to us at the time, and because of the court’s protective order we’re just finding out now about Google’s consideration of buying Epic to shut down our efforts to compete with Google Play.https://t.co/HSS1edUrQm
— Tim Sweeney (@TimSweeneyEpic) August 6, 2021
Meanwhile, the CEO of Epic Games Tim Sweeny recently communicated on Twitter that Google’s alleged plans were, at the time, unknown to Epic, and that they only recently became aware of them, as you can see in the aforementioned tweet. It must also be said that the document filed in court does not indicate whether this measure was just something that Google was only considering or if it also led to the adoption of concrete measures, but we can of course assume that in the end nothing has been concluded.
For updates on the legal battle between Epic and Apple and Google and on all the most important news related to the videogame sector, we invite you to stay tuned to the TechGameWorld.com page. If you prefer to buy game keys at discounted prices, you can do so through our link to Instant Gaming.