The Epic lawsuit Claims Google Paid Activision Blizzard $360 Million to Prevent Play Store Rival

According to court documents, Google also made deals with Ubisoft, Riot Games, and Nintendo. Epic claims that Riot paid $30 million to stop the League of Legendsstudio’s efforts to create its own “app store” and was thus “stoppered.” Engadget reached out to Riot Games for comment but they did not respond immediately.

Google claimed Epic mischaracterized the intent of its Apps and Games Velocity program. 

Activision claims that Google knew signing with Activision would cause the publisher to “abandon plans to launch an app store.” This claim is not supported by Activision. Activision spokeswoman said that Google never pressured or asked them to agree not to compete with Google Play. “Epic’s claims are absurd.”

According to a Google spokesperson, Project Hug offers developers incentives to provide benefits and early access for Google Play users who release new content. It does not stop developers from creating other app stores, as Epic falsely alleges.” The program proves that Google Play is competitive with many other developers who have many options for distributing apps and digital content.