In November, Google and Epic Games agreed to settle a lawsuit over Fortnite being removed from the App Store. But The Verge reports that the two companies have also made a secret deal involving an $800 million investment.
This secret deal was revealed in an anti-competition case between Google and the US government. Google agreed to invest $800 million over six years in Epic Games. Epic Games will help Google market Android while Google will use Epic Games' core technology in their products.
The partnership is seen as an effort to offer more video games with the Unreal Engine to Android and at the same time the Unreal Engine will be better supported on Google's products such as the Android XR device.
This is an exciting development for gamers because it will allow games that were previously only offered on iOS to also be supported on Android. When the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 was launched last year, it was the first chip to fully support Unreal Engine 5.
Google and Epic Games sued each other nearly six years ago after Fortnite was kicked off the Play Store for introducing an alternative payment system that bypassed Google's payment system. The court sided with Epic Games, accusing Google of monopolizing business and ordering them to open up the Play Store to third-party app store apps.
