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[Thick Thighs Save Lives]

New info from the Epic v Google trial shows that in 2018, Google had floated the idea of teaming up with Tencent to buy full 100% ownership of Epic Games.

Driven primarily by Stadia, Google once had a roaring flame of ambition to break into video games. The search giant made a big splash in gaming throughout 2018 with its now-defunct game streaming platform-and-storefront Stadia, and to help fortify its billion-dollar disruption, Google planned to invest more into content infrastructure. Google had originally eyed some high-profile deals for Stadia before eventually settling on opening its own first-party labels and entreating third-party publishers.

According to new findings in the Epic v Google trial, ex-Stadia lead Phil Harrison had proposed an interesting idea: What if Google could ally with Tencent and completely buy Epic Games' shares? This would help supercharge Google's position with co-ownership of Fortnite, which was practically the biggest game in the world in 2018 thanks to the battle royale's astronomically-high $5.5 billion in revenues.

Failing that, Google was exploring a potential 20% stake purchase in Epic for the sum of $2 billion.

As per The Verge, the court case revealed email testimony between Google executives that laid out preliminary ideas and plans for the gaming platform.

In July 2018, Phil Harrison wrote the following regarding a potential Epic acquisition or stake purchase:

I've taken a stab at a high-level strategic rationale for an investment in Epic.

Fortnite is (or can be) the leading business driver for Google across:

• YouTube (already 100M+increase in game watch time MAU)
• GCP (to shift 130M+players from AWS and build an anchor tenant in games

Dav Sobota, who served as director of corporate development at Google from 2008 - 2018, replied with the following message that discussed potential plans to team up with Tencent in some way:

As a potential alternative, Phil is proposing we consider approaching Tencent to either

(a) buy Epic shares form Tencent to get more control over Epic (unclear how that helps us without a majority share) or
(b) join up with Tencent to buy 100% of Epic (and then of course we do a lot of deep commercial things with Epic).

Chinese tech giant Tencent currently owns about 40% of Epic Games, with Sony Corp. also having invested to acquire a ~5% stake in the company. Epic has been valued at over $31 billion.

Google discussed teaming up with Tencent to buy Epic Games

New info from the Epic v Google trial shows that in 2018, Google had floated the idea of teaming up with Tencent to buy full 100% ownership of Epic Games.

www.tweaktown.com

 

[Ronin_7]

Google has infinite money, they can still buy whoever they want.

 

[Cert.in.Death]

Good luck convincing Sweeney to give up his shares. The last concern he has is his own money supply.

 

[Flutta]

What a weird team up….

 

[CGNoire]

Fuck that.

 

[tusharngf]

Sony should get epic that will be insane.. Mmo gaas money is what sony wants

 

[bbeach123]

*in 2018 .

 

[K2D]

Tencent swooped in at an opportune time. As development gets more and more intricate, its gets harder and harder to start up anew with a game engine and compete on level ground. Maybe AI can offset that.

 

[StereoVsn]

Well, thankfully they didn’t happen. Because Google would have just sold its shares to Tencent after Stadia fiasco.

Tim Epic is still better vs $.10.

 

[Roxkis_ii]

If it's okay for MS to buy Activision, then Google buying Epic shouldn't be an issue at all.

 

[Unknown?]

If it's okay for MS to buy Activision, then Google buying Epic shouldn't be an issue at all.

Yup, all the people saying it's just competition should welcome Google buying up Epic with open arms. Where's adamsapple and Oreziel to cheer them on?

 

[rofif]

Lol I was right to never create epic store account

 

[Fake]

And we have people licking boots in the other thread.

 

[Trab-Pu-Kcip]

The first (and maybe only) good idea I heard from Mr Harrison.

 

[SplunkyMunkey]

If Sony would of brought epic they could make fortnite and unreal tournament into Gaas they would have age of wonders probably buy C&C ip and have RTS and have the rights for unreal engine specially designed for playstation consoles and pc

 

[DeepEnigma]

If Sony would of brought epic they could make fortnite and unreal tournament into Gaas

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

We're going to die and a Fortnite sponsored president will be elected into the White House. I can't imagine a price that would get Epic to sell. Their tendrils are everywhere.

 

[Flutta]

Yup, all the people saying it's just competition should welcome Google buying up Epic with open arms. Where's adamsapple and Oreziel to cheer them on?

They are too busy playing with Phils ballz, they don’t have time.

 

[Flutta]

Lol I was right to never create epic store account

You missed out on a bunch of free shit

 

[rofif]

You missed out on a bunch of free shit

Games I want, I buy on release or shortly after.
Other stuff I am not interested in usually.

Meaning - I play what I want. not what is free

 

[Flutta]

Games I want, I buy on release or shortly after.
Other stuff I am not interested in usually.

Meaning - I play what I want. not what is free

Fair.
But you still missed out on a bunch of free shit.

 

[Darkkahn]

The more we know the worst things get.

 

[rofif]

Fair.
But you still missed out on a bunch of free shit.

well.. that is undeniable

 

[SEGAvangelist]

I would like some other group to just buy Tencent's shares.

 

[Shubh_C63]

Sony should get epic that will be insane.. Mmo gaas money is what sony wants

Can you imagine all Sony PC games being EPIC exclusives.
Fans would not know what to do then lol