Court documents from the ongoing Epic Games vs Google antitrust case reveal the internet giant wanted to take over the Fortnite and Unreal Engine developer, and was willing to work with shareholder Tencent to complete a buyout.
A quick reminder of how we got here: in August 2020, Epic implemented a method to circumvent Apple and Google fees on in-game payments in the iOS and Android versions of Fortnite. The two platform-holders swiftly retaliated by pulling the game from their storefronts. Epic subsequently filed lawsuits against both Apple and Google, and the case against Apple was settled in September 2021 in favour of Apple on nine of 10 counts. Earlier this year, the US Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the rulings after appeals from both parties.
Now Epic is back in court to wage its case against Google. While the court battle between Epic and Apple brought us the bizarre moment in which banana mascot Peely's decency was questioned in (apologies, in the tuxedo he's known as Agent Peely), so far the proceedings with Google have been revealing in a slightly different way.