Kravis got Sweeney to admit that by the end of 2020 Epic paid a 30% cut to Sony Corp’s PlayStation, Microsoft’s Xbox and Nintendo consoles on US$12bil (RM55.77bil) Epic earned on the three platforms. On cross-examination, Google’s lawyer Jonathan Kravis questioned Sweeney to underpin the technology company’s argument that the 30% cut is the standard fee charged to developers by gaming platforms. When asked by Epic’s lawyer what he hopes the jury will decide, he said: “We want the jury to find that Google has violated the law so the court can make Google stop enforcing these policies.” Sweeney told jurors that Epic isn’t seeking any monetary damages. Sweeney said in 2018 he believed Android wasn’t closed to developers, but subsequently realised Google’s operating system was a “fake open platform” that was actually just as closed as he found Apple’s App Store to be in terms of policies for developers. The Epic CEO testified that Google tried to cut a deal with his company that he rejected and went on to strike “secret” accords with mobile device makers to maintain Google Play as the dominant Android app marketplace. An appeals court upheld the judge’s ruling and Epic is now asking the US Supreme Court to review it. Epic mostly lost that fight, which was decided by a federal judge in Oakland, California, after a trial. Sweeney previously testified in a 2021 trial in a similar antitrust suit targeting Apple Inc’s App Store policies as unfair and self-serving. If Epic prevails, Google could be forced to allow competing app marketplaces and payment methods on its app store, threatening billions of dollars in revenue generated by Google Play. The jury trial started two weeks ago and is expected to wrap up in early December. “We very much wanted to avoid that and do business directly with our customers,” Sweeney told jurors. The court fight started in 2020 when Epic marketed Fortnite on Android and sidestepped the Google Play billing system and the 30% revenue cut it was taking from app developers. Sweeney, who founded the company that makes the blockbuster Fortnite, took the witness stand Nov 20 in San Francisco federal court to reinforce his claims that Google Play policies are unlawful and allow Alphabet Inc to maintain a monopoly in the Android mobile-app distribution market. Epic Games Inc chief executive officer Tim Sweeney testified that Google’s Android operating system is a “fake open platform” in a high-stakes antitrust lawsuit over claims that the technology giant thwarts app market competition.
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