Epic Games Brings Big Charges Against Google For Anticompetitive Practices

Alphabet Inc's GOOG GOOGL Google paid Activision Blizzard Inc ATVI and Riot Games millions of dollars to not launch competing app stores or to prevent developers from making Android apps outside of the Play Store, according to a court filing from Epic Games Inc.
Epic says Google agreed in January 2020 to pay Activision $360 million over three years after the game publisher discussed launching its app store, Bloomberg reports.
Fortnite maker Epic Games is in a wild antitrust battle with Google and Apple Inc AAPL over the tech giant's app store practices.
Also Read: US Senators Launch Bill To Control Apple, Google's App Store Dominance: Reuters
The complaint also alleged that in March 2020, Google entered into a similar agreement, for approximately $30 million, with Tencent Holdings Ltd TCEHY-owned Riot Games, maker of the hit game League of Legends. Riot had also explored launching its app store.
Google denied the allegation and said that the program associated with these mobile gaming deals, Project Hug, was designed to incentivize developers to give early access to Google Play consumers for new app content.
Activision also denied the charges.
In October, Microsoft Corp MSFT, which is in the process of acquiring Activision Blizzard, revealed in a filing that it plans to build its own "next generation game store which operates across a range of devices, including mobile."
Price Action: GOOG shares are higher by 0.64% at $99.13 premarket on the last check Friday.
Image by succo from Pixabay

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