See how much Google says it would cost to meet Epic’s biggest demands

How much would it cost Google to allow third-party app stores like the Epic Games Store to live within its own Google Play Store, with access to all Android apps? Google says the reputational damage cannot be calculated — but that it would take 12 to 18 months and more than $60 million to build and maintain the technical foundations.

We’re still waiting to find out what Epic really won in its surprise victory against Google last December after a jury ruled that the Google Play app store and Google Play Billing are illegal monopolies – but we know what Epic wants . O Fortnite The developer’s biggest request was undoubtedly that Google open its own Android app store, forcing Google to keep other competing app stores within its walls.

While $61.3 million may seem like a lot of money on the low end (or more than $137 million on the high end), we’ve seen in court documents that Google makes billions of dollars in profit from the Google Play store every year. quarter – for 2021, the company’s own forecast suggested that the store would produce almost US$12 billion in profit in a single year. This represents more than US$31 million in profit per day.

Google also argues that it should have the right to charge third-party app stores a fee if it were forced to make these changes.

Again, it’s not all about money. As you can read in the full document, Google claims that Android app developers would “suddenly face a range of regulatory and compliance risks associated with advertising and distributing their apps around the world” if Google allowed any app store take your application catalog. applications.

It also argues that user security and reputation are at stake because “malicious app stores could then mix apps from Google’s catalog with malware or pirated apps from their own catalog,” among other examples.

“These proposed solutions would require a dramatic redesign of the Play Store and Android, which would harm Android users and developers, the trust and security of the Play Store, and the Android ecosystem, and would require Google to become a forced reseller for its competitors ,” said Google. he writes.

Epic will now have the chance to question Google’s estimates and present a rebuttal. The court is scheduled to have a final hearing on August 14.