Activision Blizzard Had a Plan, or Ploy, To Launch Its Own Android Game Store (theverge.com) 10
An anonymous reader shares a report: Until today, we'd never heard of "Project Boston." It was Activision Blizzard King's big plan to earn more money from its mobile games by changing its relationship with Google. And if things had gone differently, it would have given Activision Blizzard its own app store on Android. In late 2019, according to internal emails and documents I saw today in the courtroom during the Epic v. Google trial, the company decided it was going to dual-track two intriguing parallel plans.
The first plan was to build its own mobile game store -- either in partnership with Epic Games and Clash of Clans publisher Supercell or all by itself -- to bypass the Google Play Store. You'd download it from a website, sideload it onto your Android phone, and then you'd be able to purchase, download, and patch games like Candy Crush, Call of Duty: Mobile, and Diablo Immortal there. In private emails with Epic CEO Tim Sweeney, Activision Blizzard CFO Armin Zerza pitched it as the "Steam of Mobile" -- a single place to buy mobile games, with a single payment system. Documents suggest the store would charge a transaction fee of 10 to 12 percent, lower than the 30 percent fee Google (and Nintendo, Sony, Microsoft, and Steam) impose on gaming transactions.
The first plan was to build its own mobile game store -- either in partnership with Epic Games and Clash of Clans publisher Supercell or all by itself -- to bypass the Google Play Store. You'd download it from a website, sideload it onto your Android phone, and then you'd be able to purchase, download, and patch games like Candy Crush, Call of Duty: Mobile, and Diablo Immortal there. In private emails with Epic CEO Tim Sweeney, Activision Blizzard CFO Armin Zerza pitched it as the "Steam of Mobile" -- a single place to buy mobile games, with a single payment system. Documents suggest the store would charge a transaction fee of 10 to 12 percent, lower than the 30 percent fee Google (and Nintendo, Sony, Microsoft, and Steam) impose on gaming transactions.
And then they figured out... (Score:3)
Business choices are all about money, not ethics.
Re: (Score:2)
Not really. App stores are money printers. Especially if you're only offering highly curated high value software with existing user base. That automatically removes one of the most difficult parts from the equation, the acceptance process for both initial software and its updates.
No, that's not why. (Score:1)
According to the article, the cost of running an app store had exactly zero to do with their decision to abandon it.
They secured a different and very lucrative deal with Google. That deal was always planned to be "instead of" the app store, if it was secured. Which it was.
It is true that the choices are about money and not ethics. But it is not true that they ever believed that the commission on their app store was too low to be profitable.
Try again, clown. (Score:2)
According to the article, the cost of running an app store had exactly zero to do with their decision to abandon it.
Showing that you literally didnt read it. Try again.
“Obviously we never pursued it because it wasn’t financially attractive for us,” he said. Google gave the company a better deal, the one it apparently wanted all along.
Next time read all the words, even the ones in the last paragraph #clown.
Interesting use of the word ploy (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1)
Of course it's cheaper (Score:2)
Documents suggest the store would charge a transaction fee of 10 to 12 percent, lower than the 30 percent fee Google
If I have a product that has the small fraction of the reach of a competitor, how would I justify charging the same as the competition to my business customers?