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“Google to offer $90M+ total enterprise value to Riot Games in 2020,” begins a document about the Google Games Velocity Program deal it offered to the game developer.
That $90M+ included:
$12M+ in pre-registration support on the store
$20M+ in merchandising launch support
$10M+ in post-launch promotion
$5M for a gift card retail program
$15M in co-marketing dollars (pre-reg and launch)
$10M in a Google Ads reimbursement program, $1 for every $3 spent up to $30 million dollars
$3M for a YouTube community development program
$20M+ in Google Cloud credits with “(2% of game rev on play as credits)”
“Dedicated technical, launch, growth, marketing, and BD Google staff for Riot Games”
“Dedicated quarterly code review, growth, optimization, and UI/UX workshops”
In exchange, Riot had to commit to sim-ship and content parity (with an exception for telcos) — but there was no requirement to stay exclusive to Google Play, we’re seeing. Google’s lawyer is walking Riot’s CFO through contract after contract, addendum after addendum, and none of them mention exclusivity or a Riot store.
So if Google stopped Riot from launching a store, it would have been through a private understanding — and Riot’s CFO says there wasn’t one.
He does say he believes it was Riot’s “perception” that Google believed Riot would sideload its games, bypassing Google’s store, if Google didn’t come through with the promised credits, though.
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