Google CEO Sundar Pichai gives an intense testimony in the Fortnite Antitrust trial against Epic Games lasting a “rocking 75-minutes”

Google CEO Sundar Pichai gives an intense testimony in the Fortnite Antitrust trial against Epic Games lasting a “rocking 75-minutes”

(credits: Epic Games and Sundar Pichai)

Although recently, streamer and content creator dramas have been at an all-time high, that’s not all that is going on! Furthermore, the gaming industry is looking at its fair share of drama, too! With Esports Orgs like Sentinels laying off employees to games realising in an unpolished state, a lot’s been happening. Furthermore, the recent Epic Games vs Google, the Fortnite Antitrust trial, is picking pace. Google’s CEO Sundar Pichai recently gave a testimony for over an hour!

There have been many game-related news popping up for quite some time now. Moreover, even the gaming community is looking at some major swift in leadership or controversies rising. The recent Microsoft vs FTC court case fiasco took months, if not years, to resolve. Although Microsoft saw many hardships, they eventually closed the acquisition deal. However, it seems like it’s Google who’s facing quite the hardships right now!

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Recently, Google and Epic Games have engaged in a court trial over Google Play’s payment system. Additionally, there have been many claims by Epic Games, and Google is fighting relentlessly to void all the claims. Furthermore, in a recent Court session of the Fortnite Antitrust trial, Google’s CEO Sundar Pichai has given an intense testimony lasting around 75 minutes detailing a lot of stuff!

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Sundar Pichai’s intense testimony in the Fortnite Antitrust Trial

For the second time in two weeks, a federal court called Google CEO Sundar Pichai on Tuesday to provide testimony on Google’s behalf in the Fortnite Antitrust Trial. Furthermore, Pichai defended the Google Play Store’s payment system for more than two hours at the most recent court hearing. Epic Games has filed a case against Google this time around over the Google Play services payment system. This case comes right after Epic Games’ case against the technology giant Apple.

Google CEO Sundar Pichai gives an intense testimony in the Fortnite Antitrust trial against Epic Games lasting over an hour
(credits: Sundar Pichai)

The creator of the well-known video game Fortnite, Epic Games, is attempting to persuade the jury that consumers and software developers are being unfairly harmed by a Google Play payment processing system that takes a 15% to 30% commission from in-app purchases. According to Epic, Google gets these fees by stifling other Android app stores with its market power. This is a strategy that Epic Games labeled “drives up prices and discourages innovation.”

According to a trial conducted on Monday, Google and Apple split 36% of the ad income from Safari search inquiries in 2021. Sundar Pichai has to confirm these numbers on Tuesday in San Francisco during the Fortnite Antitrust Trial. This became a smoking gun for Epic Games as Google’s main defense of being in fierce competition against Apple is now void. Epic Games lawyer Lauren Moskowitz totally grilled the Google CEO during the trial.

The judge described the cross-questing between Epic Games lawyer and Sundar Pichai to be a “rocking 75-minute” session! Moskowitz shrewdly got Pichai to concede that the majority of Google’s $26.3 billion payment for all of Google’s 2021 agreements, which secured its search engine’s position as the autoresponder for searches on mobile devices and web browsers, went to Apple. Analysts project that Apple gets between $15 billion and $20 billion from Google each year.

Moreover, despite getting caught-guard by Epic Games’ lawyer’s cross-question during the Fortnite Antitrust trial, Sundar Pichai stood firm. The Google CEO maintained the company’s stance on being in a fiercely competitive competition against Apple despite all the deals with the iPhone makers. Sundar Pichai said during the trial regarding Google’s giving away its Android services for free to giants like Samsung and other phone manufacturers:

“We enable more affordable smartphones. It is very different from what Apple does.”

Evidence presented during Pichai’s trial on Tuesday demonstrated how profitable Google has found the Play Store to be. For example, the Play Store made $4.4 billion in operational profit in the first half of 2020. Furthermore, Pichai made note of the fact that 97% of software developers who have their programs on Google Play don’t pay any fees at all since they either don’t sell digital products or don’t make enough money to meet the commission-triggering level.

The Fortnite Antitrust trial between Epic Games and Google is still going in full power. Moreover, it’s not going to be over anytime soon. There were many instances of Sundar Pichai actively defending Google, and his testimony has given the case a good standing.

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