Epic v. Google, explained
On Monday, Fortnite publisher Epic Games will drag a tech giant into court, alleging that its mobile app store is an illegal monopoly. You may be feeling some déjà vu!
After all, didn’t Epic already go to trial with Apple, resulting in a ruling where Apple (mostly) won? Didn’t Epic fail to #FreeFortnite with itsLlamacorn legal gambit? Didn’t that all happen years ago? What are we doing here again?
The short answer: while Epic’s antitrust claims against Apple got their day in court, a similar lawsuit against Google never did. On November 6th, Epic v. Google will finally go to trial… a mere 1,180 days after Epicoriginally sued.
Hi, I’m Sean, and I’ll be your guide to this whole delightful mess.
Before we get to the Llamacorn, a little background. Epic is of course the studio behind Fortnite, the extraordinarily popular free-to-play game. Fortnite makes money by selling in-game items with its virtual currency V-Bucks. Players often buy V-Bucks the same place they play Fortnite. And until August 13th, 2020, if the player used an Android or iOS device and installed the game through an official app store, that purchase triggered an in-app payment fee to Google or Apple.
Critics call such fees the “Google tax” or the “Apple tax,” and Epic definitely wasn’t a fan.
When Epic decided to take action against these respective “taxes,” it made August 13th, 2020 avery busy day for Apple, Google, Epic, and us here at The Verge. First,Epic announced it was bypassing Apple and Google’s app store fees. It deployed a hotfix update to Fortnite without either company’s knowledge, letting you purchase V-Bucks directly through its own payment processing option at a discount. Apple andGoogle almost immediately reacted by kicking Fortnite off
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