Epic v. Google: everything we learned in Fortnite court – The Verge

Google and Epic give up fighting — third-party Android app stores are coming next week

2026-07-15T05:18:50-04:00

Epic Games and Google have just jointly withdrawn their attempt to retroactively settle the lawsuit that's changing how Android app stores work in the United States - and that means Google will be forced to carry rival app stores inside of its own. In fact, Google tells the court, it's ready to begin carrying third-party app stores on Wednesday, July 22nd. Does that mean it's time for Microsoft to launch an Xbox game store on Android?

In October 2024, Judge James Donato originally agreed that forcing Google to carry rival Android app stores within its own Google Play store for several years, and forcing it to share its own entire catalog of …

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Google is finally opening the Play Store to outside payments

2026-06-24T14:09:54-04:00

While the court still hasn't signed off on the massive settlement resolving Epic's antitrust lawsuit against Google for having a monopoly over Android's app store with Google Play, the tech giant says it will start rolling out changes to the way it handles billing for developers worldwide. As announced in March, the flat 30 percent billing fee is being replaced by "lower, decoupled fees" that partially decouple the billing and the app store.

How much of a cut Google will take from transactions now depends on whether it's for a user whose first install came before or after the new structure, how much a developer has earned, and whether or no …

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Microsoft says the ‘idea’ of an Xbox mobile store ‘is not dead’

2026-04-22T13:42:45-04:00

Microsoft first revealed it was building an Xbox mobile gaming store to take on Apple and Google all the way back in 2022. Former Xbox president Sarah Bond even went on stage at a Bloomberg event nearly two years ago and promised the store would launch in July, 2024. Now, it looks like Microsoft has put the project on hold.

Better xCloud developer redphx noticed that the store URL Microsoft had been testing for the past couple of years no longer works. It's not clear exactly when it disappeared, but the last time the website was updated was nearly a year ago.

The store was originally supposed to compete with Google and Apple, but strict ap …

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Tim Sweeney signed away his right to criticize Google’s app store until 2032

2026-03-05T14:09:52-05:00

Epic CEO Tim Sweeney might be one of the most outspoken people in the history of the world. He fought two of the world's most valuable and powerful companies almost all the way to the US Supreme Court, insulting them again and again: "crooked," "deceitful," "insanely sneaky," calling Android a "fake open platform," calling both companies "gangster-style businesses that will do anything they think they can get away with," telling me how Google's Project Hug was "an astonishingly corrupt effort at a massive scale."

But Google has finally muzzled Tim Sweeney. It's right there in a binding term sheet for his settlement with Google.

On March 3 …

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Here’s how Google describes its fee-reducing Apps Experience and Games Level Up programs

2026-03-05T07:33:03-05:00

Today, Google killed its 30 percent app store fee, partially uncoupled Google Play from Google Play Billing after they were declared an illegal monopoly in the US, and much more.

From July, depending on where you live, Google will now generally charge developers 20 percent for in-app purchases, or 10 percent for subscriptions - but it's also carving out several new categories of app which might pay differently. One of them is the mysterious new "metaverse browsers" category, whose details have been redacted.

But Google is public that two other programs, Apps Experience and Games Level Up, will let developers save up to 5 percent more of t …

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Epic and Google have signed a special deal for a new class of ‘metaverse’ apps

2026-03-04T16:50:46-05:00

Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney. | Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge, Getty Images

Epic Games and Google are burying the hatchet, but documents released today reveal that they aren't only aligned on how Google is shaking things up for app stores. The two companies have also agreed to terms about a new class of apps that they're calling "metaverse browsers," according to a heavily redacted section of a revised binding term sheet.

While the term "metaverse" has largely fallen out of favor - Mark Zuckerberg, for example, is now much more interested in AI - Epic CEO Tim Sweeney has been talking for years about the metaverse and how it might work in the future. (Depending on how you define the concept, Epic's Fortnite is alrea …

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Google isn’t waiting for a settlement — the 30 percent Android app store fee is dead

2026-03-05T07:42:02-05:00

In November, Epic and Google jointly proposed a settlement that would change Android's fate globally without cracking open Google's Android monopoly quite the way it otherwise might. Today, Google has decided it's not waiting for that settlement to be approved: it's moving forward with many of its proposed changes right now, rolling them out globally through 2027 - and we spoke to the heads of Android and Epic Games about the changes.

By June 30th, Google writes, it will lower most app store fees in the US, UK, and European Economic Area to 20 percent or less, down from 30 percent. By the end of the year, it will launch a "Registered App St …

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Epic and Google have a secret $800 million Unreal Engine and services deal

2026-01-22T19:23:22-05:00

A judge is questioning whether Epic Games and Google are settling their long-running antitrust fight partly because of a previously unannounced partnership involving the Unreal Engine, Fortnite, and Android. In a hearing in San Francisco today, the court revealed that Epic and Google have struck a new deal that apparently includes "joint product development, joint marketing commitment, joint partnerships." California District Judge James Donato expressed concerns that the agreement - which he indicated would involve Epic "helping Google market Android" and Google newly "using Epic's core technology" - could have led Epic to soften its demand …

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Is this the end of Epic and Google’s feud?

2026-01-22T22:26:21-05:00

Today, I am sitting in the courtroom that may decide the fate of Android. Epic CEO Tim Sweeney is here. Google Android boss Sameer Samat is here. Together, they'll try to convince Judge James Donato that they're no longer enemies - that Google's illegal monopoly on Android app stores can be resolved with a mutual settlement instead of the consequences the judge had ordered. And I'll be posting anything interesting I hear live in this Verge StoryStream.

Epic sued Google over five years ago in August 2020, and in December 2023 a jury unanimously handed it the win. An appeals court upheld that verdict, and the US Supreme Court didn't step in t …

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Want to link from Google’s app store to your app? That’ll be $2–4 per install

2025-12-19T20:21:55-05:00

Today was the deadline for Google to reveal how it's complying with Judge James Donato's order to crack open Android for third-party app stores, stop illegally tying its Google Play Billing system to its app store, and let developers link to ways to download their apps outside the Play Store in the US.

But Google isn't just letting app developers do things however and whenever they'd like. The company's quietly updated its support pages with a January 28th deadline to enroll in specific Google programs for "alternative billing" and "external content links" - and these programs will come with large alternative fees of their own, assuming Jud …

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