Epic Games accuses Google and Apple of colluding to manipulate the smartphone market

Epic Games is accusing Google of anti-competitive practices and is currently engaged in a lawsuit against Google over the removal of Fortnite from the Google Play store.

The company revised its complaint with new evidence it said would support the claim. In particular, Epic Games accuses Google of working closely with Apple and insists there is no real competition between the two platforms.

Epic Games points to the huge amount of money from 8 to 12 billion USD that Google pays Apple every year to be the default search engine on Apple devices and the huge profits that Google makes as a result.

“Moreover, the close relationship that Google maintains with Apple further reduces the incentive to compete, innovate, and invest in app distribution as it is in Google’s interest to partner with its competitor, Apple.” , Epic Games raised.

Epic Games said that Google has little incentive to ” compete more with Apple at the smartphone operating system level and use more resources than it currently has to attract users from iOS to Android”.

This means that Google doesn’t pressure Apple to have more developer-friendly policies and make it difficult for developers to follow Apple’s rules.

“If it doesn’t make a significant profit from searches on iOS devices, Google may have more incentive to differentiate its Android platform from Apple in terms of the commissions it charges on app transactions. If Android competes with iOS on app deals, the competition in the market will make Android apps cheaper for users and attract developers to run their apps first (or even just) on Android. Instead, Google and Apple are two monopolies that manipulate, giving developers virtually identical terms and changing those terms in parallel (if any),” according to the filing. Profile of Epic Games

Epic states that “Google’s persistent monopoly is the result of Google’s deliberate efforts to achieve and maintain it”.

It can be difficult to prove that Apple or Google are a monopoly when they pose an alternative, but Epic seems to be trying to prove that there is in fact monopolistic collusion between companies that own 99% of the market. smartphone market, to the detriment of developers and users.

In a statement to iMore, Google said;

“Android’s open ecosystem allows developers to distribute apps through multiple app stores. For game developers who choose to use the Play store, we have consistent policies that are fair to developers and keep the store safe for users. While Fortnite is still available on Android, we can no longer offer it on Play because it violates our policies. We will continue to defend ourselves against these worthless claims.”

Reference: MSP