Epic won its anti-trust case against Google today, The Verge reports, following a California jury trial. While the judge hasn’t announced exactly what that win will entail, it’s a far different outcome than Epic’s largely unsuccessful 2021 beef with Apple.
Both cases started with a volley from Epic against app store fees, with the developer surprise launching its own payment system on the Apple App Store and Google Play in August 2020. This was an effort to both circumvent and raise awareness about these stores’ supposed monopolies on mobile storefronts, where app developers are subject to the companies' rules and, more importantly, fees. Apple and Google both responded by kicking Fortnite off their stores for breaking the rules. Epic responded by taking both companies to court, as well as launching a publicity campaign that made all of our lives a little worse.
The Apple trial was an often hilarious romp in which Epic struggled to make a coherent case. Epic would ultimately mostly lose that one, with delightfully hard-ass judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers finding in Apple’s favor on every point except for allowing developers to tell users about alternative payment methods. It was certainly not the big win Epic was hoping for, which wouldn't seem to bode well for the company's fight against Google.
The Google trial felt like it garnered less attention from gamers and the general public: it wasn’t made available online the way the trial against Apple was, and it always played a bit of second fiddle to Epic’s focus on Apple, especially as the two cases wound their way through the courts over the years. The Verge, present in the courtroom, did a great job covering it, and you should read all their coverage if you want the blow-by-blow. The trial showed that Google was afraid Epic’s example would convince other developers to leave the Play Store, and that it spent millions enticing game developers to stick around through something it creepily called “Project Hug.” It even tried to buy a controlling stake in Epic. Google offered some companies kinder Store fees than others, and, as The Verge writes, “While multiple Google executives testified they only cared whether games made it to Google Play — not rival app stores,” documents revealed in the trial showed that Google worked to discourage companies like Riot Games from launching their own stores.
The Verge’s writeup of the verdict reports that
After just a few hours of deliberation, the jury unanimously answered yes to every question put before them — that Google has monopoly power in the Android app distribution markets and in-app billing services markets, that Google did anticompetitive things in those markets, and that Epic was injured by that behavior. They decided Google has an illegal tie between its Google Play app store and its Google Play Billing payment services, too, and that its distribution agreement, Project Hug deals with game developers and deals with OEMs were all anticompetitive.
“Victory over Google!” Epic CEO Tim Sweeney tweeted tonight. “After 4 weeks of detailed court testimony, the California jury found against the Google Play monopoly on all counts. The Court’s work on remedies will start in January. Thanks for everyone’s support and faith! Free Fortnite!”
“Free Fortnite,” lest you wiped it from your memory, was the slogan Epic deployed against Apple back in 2020. As I and many others pointed out back then, the populist nature of Epic’s campaign was one of its most bewildering and off-putting qualities, attempting to rally the ire of gamers in its crusade to… make more money? Regular people don’t tend to get too excited about anti-trust law (unless you’re me, a reporter thrust into court documents about it who subsequently became obsessed with it to the extent that it entered your dreams), and attempting to paint Apple as the big bad who wants to take your video game away ultimately didn’t matter much in a trial decided by a judge.
Epic did no such theatrics in its Google trial, and also seemed to take a clearer tack in court focused on following the money. This seems to have paid off in a jury trial, and while the whole thing lacked the fireworks of the Apple trial, it has some potentially huge ramifications in a landscape where we’ve seen anti-trust cases against companies such as Activision, Amazon, and Google (again). A lot of people are getting sick of big tech, and if Fortnite can play a role in preventing giant companies from seizing complete control of our lives, I’ll take it.
Again, it remains to be seen what actual remedy the judge will hand out, and The Verge notes that Sweeney and Epic didn’t ask for any money (though of course not having to pay Google store fees would lead to more money in Epic's pockets). This has always been at least in part an ideological fight, even if its vibes were fairly rancid at times. I will, somewhat begrudgingly, hand it to Tim Sweeney in this circumstance. I look forward to seeing what happens next.
