In Epic Games‘ ongoing lawsuit against Google, the former’s CEO Tim Sweeney has claimed that a contract with Sony Interactive Entertainment prevents the company from passing any savings on to customers. As a result, Epic allegedly can’t sell in-game items on non-Sony platforms for a cheaper price than they are available on PlayStation.
Google seems unconvinced about Epic Games’ statement on Sony
As reported by The Verge, Google is skeptical of Sweeney’s statement because Sony is an Epic Games’ shareholder with billions of dollars invested. The Epic vs. Google lawsuit is a spat that began in 2020 when the former took issue with Play Store’s 30% fee on in-app purchases. Epic decided to find a way around both Google and Apple store fees, resulting in both companies pulling Fortnite from their respective stores.
Epic then decided to file a lawsuit against Apple and Google, one of which has already been decided in Apple’s favor despite a number of appeals. Now, Epic is going for round 2 with Google.
As for Sweeney’s statement about Sony, worth noting that the lawsuits revealed that Epic strong-armed Sony into enabling cross-play in Fortnite and, subsequently, cross-platform integration. Sony settled for a slice of the pie from the game’s in-app purchases. The company likely set a condition to prevent Epic from offering content at a lower price elsewhere because that would result in players buying items for cheap on other platforms and taking advantage of cross-platform integration, thus denying Sony that lucrative slice.
