After five years of court battles, the Epic Games vs. Google antitrust lawsuit finally ended on March 3. Not with a bang, but with a muzzled whimper, as the settlement agreement’s term sheet includes a “Cessation of advocacy against Google Play” clause, which prevents Epic Games (and its CEO, Tim Sweeney) from criticizing Google’s App store policies until 2032.
Considering how often Tim Sweeney loves to talk smack on X, this news led to a wave of ridicule online. This has clearly upset Epic Games. Gizmodo and The Verge both published articles about the “muzzle” clause in the settlement’s term sheet, and everyone at Epic Games, from VP Steve Allison and the official Epic Games Newsroom X account to even Sweeney himself, has scuttled out of the woodwork in an attempt to defend it.
“Umm – no, very wrong click bait take,” Allison stated in reply to Gizmodo’s X post. “Epic and Tim agreed to not criticize Google related to app store distribution and fees. All other topics are still on the table and criticism is fair game! Tim posted the actual language from the agreement on X earlier today if anyone wants to read it.”
Earlier today, “Tim” did, in fact, publish the “partially redacted” agreement on X. Given Allison’s comment and the tweet from Epic Games Newsroom, Sweeney’s post appears to be in response to The Verge’s claim (which has since been edited) that Epic Games cannot criticize, sue, or otherwise disparage Google. The details are a bit more specific, according to the term sheet, as it actually states that Epic Games “will not advocate for further changes to the Google policies and practices that are the subject of this Term Sheet and/or the Long-Form Agreement…”
The precise inaccuracy here that has ruffled Epic Games’ feathers is that “Tim” can still criticize Google; he just can’t specifically criticize their app store policies. “Fact check here,” Epic Games Newsroom stated in a reply on X, “Epic and Tim agreed to not criticize Google related to app store distribution and fees. All other topics are still on the table and criticism is fair game.”
In an interview with GamesBeat, Dean Takahashi directly asked Sweeney about the anti-disparagement clause. “We signed up for all that. We agree with all of that. We settled on that, and we’re not going to criticize it,” replied Sweeney. “If we were, I’d be criticizing myself, because I agree to all of this. But I can totally say that, like if I look at the website google.com, and I think the color scheme is ugly, I’m totally free to say Google’s color scheme sucked…[the clause] pertains to simply the things that we agree are fine for Google to do.”
However, there’s a slightly overlooked detail to this entire story: Judge James Donato hasn’t actually approved this new settlement deal between Google and Epic Games. Funnily enough, as reported by 80 Level, he seemingly doesn’t like the fact that the two are “suddenly BFFs.” “The only changed circumstance that I can see right now is Epic and Google – two mortal enemies who pounded each other relentlessly in this courtroom for many years – are suddenly BFFs.”
Also, even though Sweeney, or “Tim” as his drones like to refer to him, is attempting to come off as transparent and pro-consumer by tweeting the public court documents here, the only reason we know about any of this in the first place is because Judge Donato denied Google and Epic Games’ request to keep the details of the settlement a secret. Odd that the self-professed pro-consumer Tim Sweeney, who previously criticized Google for being a “gangster-style” business that attempts to do “anything they think they can get away with,” would want to keep all of this hidden from the public eye.