Google was accused of spending money to prevent big companies from launching app stores, giving 200 million yuan to Tencent subsidiary fist games.

Beijing, Nov. 18 (Xinhua) Google has reached at least 24 agreements with large app developers to prevent them from launching an app store to compete with its Play Store, according to court documents disclosed on Thursday.

Google's financial information comes from a revised complaint, which was first filed by game developer Epic Games against Google in 2020. Google agreed to pay Activision $360 million over three years in January 2020 after Activision discussed the launch of its own app store, Epic said in its complaint on Thursday. Activision has said the decision to launch an app store will depend on whether it can "find the right agreement / solution" with Google, but then agreed to launch its game on Google Play Store rather than launch it in other app stores.

In March 2020, Google signed a similar agreement with League of Legends, a subsidiary of Tencent Holdings, for about $3000 (210 million yuan), the indictment said. Before that, the fist game also tried to launch its own app store. A spokesman for the fist game declined to comment.

A Google spokesman said in an email that Epic misportrayed the business conversation. According to Google, the projects related to these mobile game transactions are called "Project Hug" and are designed to encourage developers to provide new application content to Google Play users as soon as possible. Activision called Epic's allegations "nonsense". "We have confirmed that Google has never asked or pressured us to agree not to compete with app stores. We have submitted documents and testimony to prove this." Activist said.