Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney has accused Google of offering him an unscrupulous deal to convince the company to release Fortnite in the Google Play Store instead of through its own platform.
Sweeney made the revelation while testifying in the ongoing legal battle between Epic and Google. According to Sweeney, during a meeting with Google at its headquarters, the tech giant proposed a deal he described as “crooked”. Google’s offers seemed tailored to discourage Epic from competing against them, Sweeney claimed.
Despite Google’s attempts, Sweeney refused their offers and released Fortnite on Android via its own installer in 2018. Epic ultimately resorted to launching Fortnite on the Play Store in 2020, later attempting to bypass platform fees on Android and iOS by implementing its own payment system secretly, known internally as Project Liberty.
At the start of the trial, Epic justified Project Liberty as a response to a bully, explaining that they “decided to stand up because that’s what you do to a bully”, as reported by The Verge. During cross-examination by Google’s lawyer, Sweeney admitted that Epic was aware of the plan’s violation of Google Play’s policies as it was intended.
In recent court documents from Epic vs Google, it was revealed that Google contemplated a partnership with Tencent to acquire ownership or a controlling stake in Epic Games, hoping to leverage it as a “leading business driver”.
