Sean Hollister

One attempt that did land: Epic apparently used to warn people away from downloading its game launcher from other sources, saying that Epic’s own website was the only safe place to get it. I wonder if that’ll come up again.

It sounded like the objection was successful — I couldn’t quite hear what the judge said, but the Google lawyer sat down with a smile.

Also, it’s Google’s turn to question him now.

“In the PC space, is 70/30 still the standard?”

No, says Allison.

2) Epic claims there’s no real Android alternative to the Play Store; Google says there is, but it’s not about Android; Google has to compete with the iPhone.

3) We’re now hearing from the head of Epic’s PC games store, but it kind of makes sense.

Read the rest of our StoryStream below for the details!

In case you’re keeping track, Epic Games Store boss Steve Allison says on the witness stand his store isn’t profitable yet. The goal is still growth, he says. Emails revealed during the Epic v. Apple trial suggested the company was hoping to claim half of all PC gaming revenue.

“Do you understand where the 70/30 split structure came from?”

“Why did you believe that Steam’s 30 percent share was very high if it simply replicated Walmart’s share?” Epic’s attorney asks.

Allison says Valve simply mimic’d the physical retail split, where retailers bought games at wholesale prices and marked them up 30 percent.

But he helped Telltale relatively easily build its own digital store to keep 95 percent of revenue, he claims. He suggested Epic let developers keep 80 percent (or more) of revenue.

Epic is highlighting a few passages from an email from him to former Epic prez Paul Meegan about his eagerness to join: “Fortnite is blowing up pop culture” and “Fortnite blowing up definitely has created that potential Valve-Counterstrike moment at a scale that is much bigger than when that gave birth to what is now Steam.”

The email later suggests that “Steam is pretty ripe for disruption — if you wanted to take 20-30% paid digital PC market share you could like nobody else can.” Clearly, Epic agreed.

“Just planting the nefarious seed now.”

“How do we not look like the bad guys?

“I mean everything we’re attempting is technically a violation of google’s policy, right?” writes one employee. “Yes, but that’s not the question” answers another.

Project Banyan, the Samsung deal: “That deal never happened. He’s asking you to hold Google responsible for something it did not do.”

“Is Epic using the chats to distract me from all the evidence I do see?”

“It’s true that Google could have automatically saved all chats for all relevant employees, but just because Google didn’t save some chats didn’t mean it violated antitrust laws.”