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Google tries to move the goalposts in response to Play Store antitrust suit
A lengthy blog post attempts to dismiss some of the complaints made by dozens of state attorneys
It's been less than a day since a coalition of dozens of US states sued Google in a federal court for antitrust behavior, citing its collection of fees for distribution on the Play Store. Google has fired back with a lengthy blog post in the standard corporate "nu-uh" counter.
Australia's anti-competitive beef with Google expands to target the Play Store
The government's report stops short of calling for new legislation, but says that's an option if Google doesn't improve
Google's struggling with an image problem right now. Ever since Epic decided to pull something of a stunt with the in-app purchase systems in Fortnite, the status of both Google and Apple as the gatekeepers of the mobile app world has been called into question. Google is facing regulatory scrutiny in the US, and now it looks like Australia wants to get in on the party.
Google made almost 18 billion dollars in three months
Alphabet's Q1 2021 earnings report shows it's bringing in just so much freakin' money
It's good to be the Goog, at least if what you want is to make incredible amounts of money. Continuing its trend as the pandemic rolls on, Google and its parent company Alphabet are absolutely coining it. Revenue for the first quarter of 2021 was 55.314 billion US dollars, an increase of an astonishing 34% over last year.
Following Apple's lead, Google cuts Play Store fees in half for most developers
The first $1 million in revenue will get a lower 15% split
For half a year there's been a huge storm brewing over app store platforms, the money that they make, and who gets to keep how much of it. It all came to a head when Epic dared Apple and Google to kick Fortnite off of the App Store and Play Store for working around the usual in-app purchase revenue split. Long story short: Apple and Google did just that, and the legal battle is ongoing. But the fallout is affecting other parts of the industry.
Google could be forced to sell Chrome if the Justice Department gets its way
A potential path to curbing Google's advertising dominance
Google has been in hot water with government authorities time and time again, most recently when it comes to its acquisition of Fitbit in the EU. Now it looks like Google might have more tough times ahead in its home territory as the US Justice Department is reportedly considering forcing Google to sell the Chrome browser along with parts of its advertising business.
Monopoly Sudoku is the latest release from Marmalade Game Studio
While Monopoly is in the name, this is a standard sudoku title
Marmalade Game Studio has been releasing digital adaptations of Hasbro board games for a few years now, and already offers several familiar titles, like Clue, Battleship, and Monopoly. Of course, why sit on a lucrative license if you're not going to use it, and so Marmalade has been busy creating offshoots of these classic titles that offer their own unique mechanics in order to expand its catalog, and so the latest release from the company is Monopoly Sudoku, available today for $3.99.
The Division 2, The Crew 2, and Monopoly are coming to Stadia (Update: Crew 2 available)
You landed on my Boardwalk property
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Ubisoft is no stranger to Google's Stadia platform. The publisher has already ported Just Dance 2020, Gods & Monsters, Trials Rising, and other titles to Stadia, and now Ubisoft has revealed that three more games are on the way.
Electronic Arts released an adaption of the classic board game Monopoly for Android back in 2011, but that version was de-listed years ago, presumably due to expiring licenses. A new version of Monopoly for Android and iOS was announced last month, and now you can pre-register for it on the Play Store.
Last April the European Commission, the EU's executive body, issued a statement criticizing Google's management of Android. The Commission accused Google of facilitating monopolistic practices, specifically by tying the Play Store, the Android version of Chrome, and other common Google apps to Google's Search services among licensed Android manufacturers. Keeping manufacturers from releasing forks of Android as a condition of participating in the Google ecosystem - a process which Google calls "anti-fragmentation" - was also an issue. It took a while, but Google has finally published a full response to the Commission.
Chromecast is best known for getting video from your phone or tablet onto your television screen. It also streams audio, if you're into that sort of thing. These two things cover most of what people generally do with Google's little streaming stick.
Acting on a complaint by Russian search giant Yandex, Russia's antitrust authority has ruled that Google's policy forbidding the pre-installation of competing search providers on GMS-enabled devices is illegal in the country. Yandex, who dominates the huge Russian market on the desktop, has been hemorrhaging market share in mobile to Google. Their complaint is that Google cannot have a rule requiring Google be the default (and only) search engine on devices that ship with the Play Store.
EA and Hasbro, adding another entry to Monopoly's long history, recently released another version of the classic board game – Monopoly Millionaire. If the name of the game isn't descriptive enough, it's a game of Monopoly where the first player to reach $1,000,000 wins.
Monopoly, a game that needs no introduction, has finally made its way to the Android Market. Initially, it was available exclusively from the EA store, and, more recently, the Amazon Appstore.