Google Allegedly Paid Activision & Riot to Stop Them from Launching Rival App Stores

Google has reportedly stuck a number of deals with the leading game and app developers in an effort to stop them from launching their own app stores on Android. It is claimed that the tech giant spent hundreds of millions of dollars on these deals.

The news comes from a newly unredacted copy of a lawsuit that Fortnite developer Epic Games filed against Google back in 2020 obtained by Reuters.

The website states that, according to the lawsuit, Google paid Activision Blizzard $360 million over three years to enter into an agreement to stop the company from competing with Google Play. A similar deal was allegedly struck with League of Legends developer Riot Games, with Google reportedly paying the company about $30 million over one year.

The court papers claim that in total, there were over 24 deals between Google and major developers, including game companies such as Nintendo and Ubisoft and non-gaming app providers such as the devs behind meditation app Calm, and education app company Age of Learning.

The Google agreements with developers are said to be part of the company's larger effort known as "Project Hug" which involved payments for posting videos to YouTube and credits for various Google offerings such as advertising and cloud services. The agreements were described in previous versions of the lawsuit but never were detailed.

The lawsuit claims that agreements with Activision were made in January 2020, shortly after the company allegedly told Google it was planning to launch a rival app store on Android. Similarly, the Riot deal is said to have been intended to "stop their in-house 'app store' efforts." Considering these arguments, the lawsuit claims that the agreements between Google and the companies meant Google's effort to block rival app stores.

According to Reuters, Google called the lawsuit baseless saying that the deals were meant to keep developers satisfied and reflect healthy competition.

Riot Games hasn't commented on the situation only saying it was reviewing the filings. Meanwhile, Activision issued a statement noting that "Epic's allegations are nonsense."

"Activision testified in court that Google and Activision never entered into an agreement stating that Activision would not open its own app store," Activision's spokesperson told GamesIndustry.biz. "Google never asked us, pressured us, nor made us agree not to compete with Google Play, and we submitted documents and testimony to the court that prove this."