Kochikar is praising Fortnite on the stand, as Google’s lawyer Michelle Park Chiu asks Google’s VP of Play partnerships some questions about what happened when Epic first considered launching the game on Play instead of sideloading.
Kochikar said the game was making a million dollars a day on iOS at the time. She clarified that she doesn’t have exact numbers.
Activision, Aniplex, Bandai Namco, Bethesda, Blizzard, Com2uS, EA, King, Mixl, Niantic, NCSoft, Netmarble, NetEase, Nexon, Nintendo, Pearl Abyss, The Pokémon Company, Riot, Square Enix, Supercell, Tencent, Ubisoft.
The goal was to pitch all 22 by August 2019.
As of a later document, Google says 20 out of 21 devs signed. I’m not clear whether those were the same 21 or different ones — we also heard that Supercell rejected a deal.
Kochikar is basically explaining that “co-marketing” and “ad credits” aren’t the same thing as handing out a bundle of cash. For example, Google’s ad credits meant “we would spend one dollar for every three dollars they spend,” she says.
And in a 2019 presentation, Google explicitly says it’s not a goal to block other stores:
Non-goals: stop launch on other Android stores (e.g. Galaxy Store)
“It is important to note that this is not an exclusivity program,” reads a line in a Google email discussing the presentation.
Kochikar was not convinced that Activision would actually follow through on a threat to launch its own app store, as of a December 2019 email.
We also just saw charts, prepared by Activision Blizzard King in 2022, it appears, that show the company’s app installs and monthly active users went up and stayed up by a lot after the Google deal.
I’m not sure how the latter helps Google’s case. If ABK got special treatment from Google, wouldn’t it see an uptick? But I also think the rise might have something to do with Call of Duty: Mobile, the biggest mobile game launch ever.
“Was Riot ever prohibited from opening its own store?” Or from distributing elsewhere? On other app stores? On Apple’s App Store?
No, no, no, and no, Kochikar tells Google’s lawyer.
She says that “pulled out the stops” meant taking experts down to LA for three days to convince Riot how much Google cared — “it was their choice after that,” she says. Google didn’t try to explain the $10 million.
Kochikar had similar answers about the Activision Blizzard King deal, which she confirms was done. ABK was pleased — and wanted a renewal.
8
Verge Score
A new screen, a pile of improvements, and better pricing make this everything the original should have been.
It’s a limited-edition $679 1TB model of the just-announced Steam Deck OLED, and this one’s only for sale in the US and Canada.
Valve says it’s an experiment and is hopeful it can do more colorways in the future. It’ll come with an exclusive case, too, based on the new case within a case that ships with the $649 version.
Valve just announced the $549 Steam Deck OLED — but the Steam Deck will still start at $399 if you’re willing to settle for the old LCD screen, less efficient chip, and smaller battery. You do get 256GB of NVMe storage for $399 now, up from 64GB eMMC!
The 64GB and 512GB LCD models are discontinued, though you may still be able to find them on closeout for $349 and $449 respectively.
In a document encouraging Google to fully greenlight the deal with Riot Games, Kochikar wrote:
We pulled all stops (promised them $10M marketing before they signed GVP for example) to get Riot to stop their inhouse “app store” efforts and bring their billion dollar League of Legends franchise and other mobile games to Play (they were most likely to follow Epic’s example). Since then they have pre-registered their games on Play first!
That’s the closest thing we’ve seen yet to Epic’s assertion that Google bribed companies.
