Court Sides With Epic Games As Google Play Named Monopoly In App Store Lawsuit

In a landmark decision, a court has sided with Epic Games naming the Google Play store as a monopoly on the Android platform.

The verdict sees the jury siding with Epic Games, saying that Google is in violation of antitrust laws by taking a 30% cut on developer profits, as well as forcing those same developers to use Google’s own billing system.

It mainly highlights two factors for Google’s antitrust position- namely the app distributor, the Google Play Store, as well as the Google Billing system.

However, the kicker specifically comes in the form of deals with publishers titled Project Hug– which was later rebranded to The Google Games Velocity Program.

This is the latest chapter in a saga that’s been brewing since 2020, where Epic Games had tried to bypass platform owner cuts to make more revenue for Fortnite- a move that caused the game to be booted off both platforms.

Epic Games has since framed this as a “consumer rights” issue in a bid to sway public opinion against the tech giants.

While this most recent verdict is decisively in Epic Games’ favor, the separate lawsuit against Apple was less so- the only change won there was the ability for apps to provide alternative payment options.

No specific damages have been named- despite claiming that they’d been damaged by Google’s app policies Epic specifically didn’t request monetary compensation.

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