Sean Hollister

Senior Editor

Sean HollisterNov 13, 2023

Google wanted to lick Apple’s cookie.

Google Play boss Jamie Rosenberg, May 28th, 2016:

We’re starting to hear an escalation of the rumors that Apple will be changing its revshare on subscriptions to 85/15, potentially as early as WWDC (which is the week of 6/10).

Later in the email:

It’s a scramble but I think we need to assume the rumor is true and plan accordingly. If we can move quickly, we have a good opportunity to “lick the cookie” and preempt Apple’s announcement.

Apple did go ahead with the announcement, but Google did not lick the cookie.

(It shows the jury more of Google’s rev share changes predate the Epic lawsuit, though.)

Sean HollisterNov 13, 2023

Google, not Epic, is highlighting the LRAP deals it gave some developers.

While Netflix might have gotten a sweetheart deal on a better “LRAP++,” Google is positioning the original Living Room Accelerator Program as something fair it erected to compete with Apple.

It appears that Google Android boss Hiroshi Lockheimer may have proposed the idea in March 2015:

At our weekly TV meeting the topic of apps for TV came up and Serge pointed out he thinks Apple is offering a 15% revshare in this space and locking in content developers (a la HBO — he says Showtime have gone silent too and he thinks they’ve cut a deal with Apple as well.) I’m worried that we’re about to massively lose this developer base. Any ideas on what we could do to remain competitive? Can we also offer 15%? Or something even more interesting?

Sean HollisterNov 13, 2023

Google tries to claim it was concerned about fake Fortnite — not surprise Samsung competition.

Sameer Samat sent his “something is wrong” message on August 8th, 2018. On August 13th, a different Googler had another reason to be concerned:

I took a deeper look on Friday and discovered a vulnerability in the Fortnite Installer (and Galaxy Apps private installer API) which allows a malicious app to install a fake version of Fortnite with arbitrary permissions granted.

That sounds concerning, but it also happened days later. Was Google’s kneejerk really about security or competition? I’m genuinely not sure. Could be both?

Sean HollisterNov 13, 2023

“Android Brand Impact.”

Google found another mention of Apple to ask the witness about: in a 2018 Google Business Council review of a proposed Epic Fortnite deal, the “Android Brand Impact” of not moving forward has two bullet points:

“inconsistent access to AA games”

and

“increases perception gap vs. iOS ecosystem”

Sean HollisterNov 13, 2023

Epic doesn’t entirely get to say, “Where’s Apple?” this time!

Here’s part of February 2019 email from Rosenberg that suggests at least one Samsung dealmaker was interested in competing with Apple rather than just Google:

Here is what Jay said about Samsung’s goals:
*Primary motivation for investing in Games is to compete with Apple
*Secondary motivation to have some differentiation vs. the Chinese OEMs.
*Also, YJ Kim (head of services) has a revenue target in this area — though also gets credit somehow for how his activities help device sales.

I guess we now know who YJ is, too!

Sean HollisterNov 13, 2023

“Green bubble / blue bubble: we really wanted to work hard with Samsung to counteract that.”

As usual, Google is working to normalize the business dealings that Epic is trying to demonize, and that begins with showing that Google Play boss Rosenberg had a relationship with Samsung for a reason: he was “working day to day with the partner management team at Samsung.”

Here’s Rosenberg, today:

We felt we were very vulnerable collectively on gaming [...] iPhones had been very strong on gaming, a number of top game titles launched first on iPhones and worked better on iPhones, and we were talking with Samsung about how we together did not have a strong experience on Android devices.

Sean HollisterNov 13, 2023

“Cryptic.”

“YJ also said some cryptic thing that we would *not* do another deal like fortnite again. I asked why — he said it was not good for google/samsung.”

I spotted this intriguing passage in one of the Rosenberg emails earlier. Wonder why Epic didn’t highlight it?

Rosenberg didn’t do anything to preserve his Google chats, despite receiving a litigation hold in this case, he told Epic’s attorney.

It is now Google’s turn to question him.

Sean HollisterNov 13, 2023

“Our goals were to do better against Apple collectively with Samsung.”

Discussing the scrapped Project Banyan deal with Samsung, Rosenberg wrote on June 6th, 2019, that “it created an incentive dynamic where the store teams would be competing with each other.”

Asked Epic’s lawyer: “Your goals were not to compete?”

Rosenberg replied that the point was to join Samsung in competing against Apple. I suspect that Epic’s lawyers will gleefully point out that none of the documents mention Apple a little later today.

In the meanwhile, Epic is pointing out how uncompetitive this bit from Rosenberg’s email seems:

“If we couldn’t use rev share to secure confidence that they won’t drive down to 5%, then we wouldn’t do it.”

Sean HollisterNov 13, 2023

Samsung knew the Project Banyan deal was anticompetitive.

A Samsung exec told Google: “So you’re basically asking us to get out of the store business.” Google found nicer words: “We’re proposing that we focus together on helping you achieve your goals in a different way.”

We’re now seeing that one of Google’s goals for Project Banyan was effectively to puppet the Galaxy Store and provide a false choice for users. The agreement as proposed would see Google Play and the Galaxy Store side by side on the default homescreen, just like today, but Google would host the games, provide the billing, security, and updates in the Galaxy Store, too.

In exchange, Google would create a “financial agreement to help Samsung’s services revenue goal and justify deprioritizing the Galaxy Store,” the proposal suggested.

Again, Google and Samsung did not go through with Project Banyan.

Sean HollisterNov 13, 2023

“Something is wrong. The Epic installer never asked me to turn on US.”

Sameer Samat, VP of Android product management, and his colleagues, were very surprised to see that Samsung managed to get Fortnite on its phones via its Galaxy Store — without triggering the many-step Unknown Sources (US) prompt that, Epic argues and Google has internally conceded, creates so much friction that many users won’t bother.

Here is a message Google sent to Samsung afterwards:

Someone on our side was just able to fully download Fortnite on Note 8 with no unknown sources. We really need to understand what’s going on (and I think DJ should, too.) Very concerned. Also surprised that it’s on Note 8 given what you said about Note 9 and Tab S4 only.

Epic attorney Yonatan Even is accusing Google of having a handshake deal with Samsung not to compete too much. He points to how Google invokes the name of Samsung mobile president DJ Koh — and how Samsung quickly responds that “It was done by the Service team without my knowledge. I am looking into it now.”

“I wouldn’t characterize it as a handshake deal,” says Google former Play head Jamie Rosenberg.

Sean Hollister

Senior Editor

Senior Editor

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Sean Hollister

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