In particular, documents that Google’s Finance Director for Platforms and Ecosystems prepared for the CFO of Alphabet around the time of Fortnite’s launch on Android showed that Google feared what it termed a “contagion risk” resulting from more and more app developers forgoing Google Play. Google feared that the “contagion” would spread in this way: first, inspired by Epic’s example, “[p]owerful developers” such as “Blizzard, Valve, Sony, Nintendo”—creators of some of the most popular and profitable entertainment—would be “able to go on their own”, bypassing Play by directly distributing their own apps.

Then, other “[m]ajor developers”, including Electronic Arts, King, Supercell and Ubisoft, will choose to “colaunch off Play”, collaborating to forego Google’s distribution services as well. And finally, Google even identified a risk that “[a]ll remaining titles [will] co-launch off Play”. Google calculated the total at-risk revenue from the threatened loss of market share in Android app distribution to be $3.6B, with the probability-weighted loss “conservative[ly]” estimated at $550M through 2021. Google also recognized that the “[r]ecent Fortnite + Samsung partnership further amplifies risk & urgency of problem” facing its monopoly position in Android app distribution. Google was determined not to let this happen.

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