CARY – Epic Games CEO, founder and majority owner Tim Sweeney took to Twitter to savor Epic’s antitrust victory over Google in federal court on Monday. He also personally thanked the jurors in the case. And Cary-based Epic declared the jury’s unanimous decision a “victory for all app developers and consumers.”
Epic Games graphic
Let’s start with Sweeney’s tweet:
“Victory over Google! After 4 weeks of detailed court testimony, the California jury found against the Google Play monopoly on all counts. The Court’s work on remedies will start in January. Thanks for everyone’s support and faith! Free Fortnite!”
“Free Fornite” has been the battle cry of Epic since it launched lawsuits against both Apple and Google for banning Epic’s globally popular Fortnite from their app stores.
The battle against Apple continues with the U.S. Supreme Court handling an appeal in Apple’s victory earlier this year.
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As other parties in the Google suit backed out, Sweeney had tweeted that Epic would fight on alone.
Immediately after the verdict was announced Sweeney greeted jurors.
“The jury was all smiles,” reported TheVerge.
“The one million game developers who couldn’t be here thank you,” Sweeney told them, TheVerge noted.
Sweeney had been in the courtroom daily when the trial was in session since it opened Nov. 5, the news site has reported.
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Epic’s statement
Epic also published a victory blog shortly after the verdict. Here it is:
“Today’s verdict is a win for all app developers and consumers around the world. It proves that Google’s app store practices are illegal and they abuse their monopoly to extract exorbitant fees, stifle competition and reduce innovation,” Epic said.
“Over the course of the trial we saw evidence that Google was willing to pay billions of dollars to stifle alternative app stores by paying developers to abandon their own store efforts and direct distribution plans, and offering highly lucrative agreements with device manufacturers in exchange for excluding competing app stores.
“These deals were meant to cement Google’s dominance as the only app store in town – and it worked. More than 95% of apps are distributed through the Play Store on Android.
“Google imposes a 30% tax on developers simply because they have prevented any viable competitors from emerging to offer better deals. And Google executives acknowledged in Court that their offer of a 26% rate on third party payment options is a fake choice for developers.
“This is, of course, what we know. From the CEO down, Google employees willfully re-directed sensitive conversations to chat, knowing that their contents would be deleted forever.
“The evidence presented in this case demonstrates the urgent need for legislation and regulations that address Apple and Google strangleholds over smartphones, including with promising legislation in progress right now with the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumer Bill in the UK and the Digital Markets Act in the EU.
“Thank you to the Court for hearing this important case and for the next steps determining the remedies that will right Google’s decades of anticompetitive conduct.
“And thank you to the jury for their historic decision. The one million game developers who couldn’t be here thank you!”
