Following a settlement between Epic and Google on the return of Fort Night to Play and the reduction of the standard commission, the market was somewhat confused and disappointed about the outcome of the long-standing legal dispute between the two giants. In recent days, Google has further explained the conditions that developers need to meet to unlock the new 15 per cent internal commission policy later this year.
According to the new policy, later this year Google will reduce the amount of in-house purchases through Play Shop from 30 per cent to 20 per cent. At the same time, for developers in the United States, the European Union, the United Kingdom and Australia, an additional 5 per cent commission would be charged for in-house purchases using the Google default billing infrastructure. This cost will vary and may be higher in other markets. As previously confirmed, developers could reduce the fixed platform fee of 20 per cent to 15 per cent if they joined Google Play Game’s “Level Up” scheme. At this week’s GDC (gay developers’ conference), Google confirmed that, as of July this year, developers needed to integrate their AI-driven “Play Game Sidekick” tools into the game, with the simultaneous use of Google’s Achievement System, to qualify for the plan.
By November this year, developers will also need to use Google ‘ s cloud filing system (to support synchronisation of equipment progress) to qualify for the plan. These requirements are additional to the technical and morphological requirements outlined in article 10 of the Epic Gomes-Google legal agreement last week. Google also revealed this week that its Sidekick technology, based on Gemini ‘ s big model, is now being applied to 90 games and that a PC tab has been added to Play ‘ s store to show games that can be bought and played across platforms. Other adjustments to Play Shop include the fact that developers can now provide a “play-and-play” feature so that players can experience a game-test before buying it. Google indicates that it is a part of Play Pass subscription service similar to Apple Arcade and can now also play at both PC and mobile ends.
In addition, the Google Play Console has added a wish card and discount to be tested, which will start from the mobile end and then be extended to the PC end.
