During the ongoing Epic vs Google antitrust trial, Google confirmed in court that it had offered a $147 million deal to Epic for launching its battle royale game Fortnite on the Google Play store for Android. Purnima Kochikar, the VP of Play partnerships at Google, said that the deal was proposed and presented to Epic, but they did not accept it.

The deal was made to provide Epic with incremental funding over a three-year period, which would have ended in 2021.The main purpose of the deal was to prevent other popular apps from bypassing Android’s official store and to protect Google’s earnings from in-app purchases.

Epic has also accused Google of offering similar deals to other developers, including Activision Blizzard and Riot Games.

In 2018, Epic launched Fortnite on Android, though it was made available directly from its website, bypassing the Play Store’s fees. This allowed them to sell Fortnite’s in-game currency V-Bucks, without paying the commission required by Play Store apps. Two years later, in 2020, Epic decided to concede and use the Play Store, citing “scary, repetitive security pop-ups” and other factors that significantly disadvantage them.

Google was allegedly panicked by Epic Games’ decision to offer Fortnite outside of the Google Play Store. Epic Games claimed that Google feared a “contagion risk” if other game developers followed suit.

The documents showed that Google could lose billions of dollars in revenue if other top game developers defected. The potential loss projected from the absence of Fortnite from Google Store was between $130 million and $3.6 billion.

During the court proceedings, Google claimed that their primary concern was losing games from the Play Store, however, they denied any wrongdoing. According to Kochikar’s testimony, Google merely wanted developers to opt for the Play Store, and investing in getting more games on the service was worth every penny.

Google’s “Project Hug” with game developers

Epic Games argued that Google used “bribe or block” tactics to prevent competition. Google offered game developers deals, internally referred to as “Project Hug,” to keep them within the Google Play ecosystem. The deals, of which Epic says Google reached a deal worth $360 million with Activision Blizzard and an $18 million deal with Valorant, were aimed at addressing competition from rival app stores and the 30% revenue cut taken from developers.

Lawrence Koh, the former director of games business development for Google Play, testified about “Project Hug,” an initiative to attract developers. Google denied the bribery allegations and clarified that the deals did not prohibit developers from creating alternate app stores.

Fortnite-maker Epic has accused Google of abusing power in the Android app market by charging fees for Google Play Store use, enforcing its own payment system, and stifling competition in their antitrust trial.