Sean Hollister

Sweeney also says the two-step download process (Fortnite Launcher, then Fortnite) was all about updates. Every week when Epic offered a new version of Fortnite, users would have to download the game all over again if not for the launcher, Sweeney says.

Epic is setting up Sweeney to reveal how betrayed Epic felt to learn Android wasn’t as open as he thought. Google did something similar the other day.

(We moved on fairly quickly from the Sony cross-play fight; Sweeney suggested that Sony and Epic actually became closer afterward, with Sony Pictures using the Unreal Engine, Sony Music partnering on Fortnite, and Sony Corp becoming a shareholder in Epic.)

I wonder what Google’s lawyers will do with the “direct relationship with customers” assertion. Document dumps from the Epic v. Apple trial suggest Epic was hugely reliant on Sony; seemingly happy to let PlayStation have that relationship and pay Sony’s fee.

He’s explaining a June 2018 email he sent to Sony’s Phil Rosenberg, threatening that Fortnite cross-play would happen one way or another.

“Please inform Kodera-san, and please be clear, that Epic will enable full interoperability between all platforms in Fortnite at a timely point in the future ... we are prepared to pursue this course with all available resources, wherever it leads us, and for however long.”

Sweeney says no, you couldn’t play Fortnite across Sony PlayStation and Microsoft Xbox when it first arrived, but Epic “went to battle” to change that. That’s a fight Epic won, I might add — though not all by itself.

“I built the very first version of the Unreal Engine myself between 1995 and 1998,” he says. Everything he’s said so far has been background about what his company does and a rough idea of which companies Epic competes with.

Now, we’re watching a brief intro video to what the Unreal Engine is and what it can do. (Many game developers and some Hollywood studios use it to generate all kinds of 3D graphics; The Mandalorian famously used it for entire digital sets.)

He says he co-founded the company at the age of 20 and had been programming since the age of 12.

“Zero percent if they process their transaction and 4 percent if Google processes their transaction,” we just heard in court.

There’s no other new fee. Both Google and Spotify agreed to each commit $50 million to a “success fund” as part of the sweetheart deal, though.