Alphabet would have bought a company we never thought it would pick.
Almost every day, interesting documents related to the lawsuit between Google and Epic Games emerge that make us want to hit the floor with our chins. Well, that’s the case now, as The Verge has discovered that Google would have acquired a larger company for its now-released, then quickly forgotten, then finally discontinued Stadia service, just to make its cloud gaming service more popular. Google would have bought Epic Games! This was revealed in an internal email exchange, calling the deal Project Elektra.
Google would have acquired a majority stake in the Tim Sweeney-led company (in which he remains the majority owner, but Chinese tech giant Tencent also owns about 40%, and Google also planned to team up with them to buy the whole company) during 2018 because Epic Games made Fortnite a success, which would have made it a Google product. And it would have been a big help for Android, as Stadia was launched in 2019. It all sounds ambitious, but Epic would have had more control over the games published by Google.
“We’re bringing a package offer to BC on Thursday re Epic. Talked to Jamie, and I think we need a few pages on what the investment could look like and someone there to discuss it (based on what we can gather publicly). We just did a prep call and investment was the only way people could realistically think of to sway them on Epic’s approach to Android – because it’s easy to imagine us investing billions and some ridiculous valuation (for everyone except the Corpdev folks),” the email read.
Maybe it’s a good thing that Google didn’t end up owning Epic Games, because the company has a tendency to get rid of its so-called failing products quickly. We’re not the only ones who think so, as the Killed By Google website has nearly three hundred!
Source: WCCFTech
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