The ongoing antitrust lawsuit between Google and Epic Games also reveals some developments in the gaming world that we have never heard of before. One of these developments stands out as Activision Blizzard’s desire to create its own mobile game store. The gaming giant also took serious steps in this regard in 2019.
In court, Epic Games argued that Google made payments to some companies just to maintain its game store monopoly in the Android market, thus preventing the establishment of rival stores. Activision Blizzard was also cited as an example of these claims. According to an internal Activision Blizzard memo submitted as evidence, the gaming giant seriously considered a game store project in order to negotiate with Google.
Activision Blizzard wanted more from the mobile gaming market
In this project called Project Boston, it is planned to quietly open an Activision Blizzard King games store for Android devices. The company evaluated the alternatives of opening this store itself or as a joint marketplace with companies such as Epic Games or Supercell, known for Clash of Clans. While it is planned that other game developers will also be able to publish games in this store, the commission rate is planned to be 12%.
This market, which ABK describes as the “Steam of mobile”, would thus be the market with the most affordable commission rate. This store would be ported to iPhone after Android. About 70 King employees started working to open this marketplace with mobile games, especially Candy Crush.
The other plan, and apparently ABK’s main request, was for Google to offer a more attractive offer. As part of the company’s “stronger economy across mobile, YouTube, advertising, media spend and cloud” policy, the company made a deal with Google. As a result, Google agreed to pay $360 million to Activision Blizzard King. In his statement to the court, ABK CFO said that the small team they established would not be sufficient for such a project and that establishing their own marketplace was inefficient in terms of cost. Epic Games, on the other hand, argued that Google followed such an approach because it was afraid that other companies would follow this path if ABK established its own store.
