Experts say Google Play opening up in the US will have minimal impact

gamesindustry.biz:

Earlier this week, US courts mandated that Google must – for a three-year period – open up its Play app store to allow more competition.

This ruling follows the trial opposing Epic and Google late last year, where the jury voted in favour of the Fortnite firm. The changes Google has now been told to make include:

Google is appealing against the judge's decision, but this is a lengthy process and the ruling comes into effect on November 1, 2024 (although Google will have eight months to put all the changes into place).

"Android users have access to multiple app stores already, but Google Play still dominates"

Epic is already hailing this as a victory, particularly now it finally has its own mobile store. But experts tell GamesIndustry.biz that opening up Google Play in the US may not have as much impact as people think.

"I'm not expecting these changes to have a dramatic impact on the dynamics of the mobile games market in the US," says Piers Harding-Rolls, head of games research at Ampere Analysis.

"Firstly, in terms of the overall market, the US mobile games market is dominated by spending on iOS, with Android taking a minor share. Games companies won't stop bringing their games to Apple devices even if the app store rules are not as favourable as Android potentially, and consumers won't, in general, choose Android phones just to get access to Epic Games Store on mobile.

"Secondly, Android consumer preferences and behaviour are unlikely to change significantly from what is done today. Android users have access to multiple app stores already, but Google Play still dominates. These rulings will make it more seamless to discover and access games from other app stores, but there are still fees and charges that Google will be allowed to make for Google Play-based policing which could undermine the ‘free market' impact."

Newzoo analysts tell us that while this ruling may be the "tip of an iceberg of slow, sweeping changes to the mobile market," it's important to not overestimate