Epic Games accused Google of removing the contents of the office chat room of employees, which, in the opinion of Fortnite, would be evidence of the unfair conduct of the search giant and would be evidence in legal proceedings between the companies.
According to Epic Games, the defendant's employees used Google Chat for work communications and deliberately allowed the removal of the story after 24 hours. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
In this connection, the game developer requested that the judge, as a punishment imposed on Google, ask the jury to assume that the content of the correspondence was unfavourable to Google or to regard its absence as a malicious act. It is unlikely that the public will ever be able to see the contents of the correspondence, but Epic Games argues that its removal is suspicious enough to be noticed by the jury.
Google, on the other hand, is predictably in the opposite position, claiming that material in staff correspondence is irrelevant.
In 2020, Epic Games added to the mobile version of Fortnite microtransactions, bypassing Apple App Store and Google Play pay-as-you-go systems, considering the commission's platforms to be 30% excessive. In response, Apple and Google removed the game from their app stores and the developer sued them. Last year, the Apple case ended with the latter's victory, and the Google trial is still ongoing.