Fee War (3)
Tom Scott CEO looked at me and said, “Honestly, I thought you’d try to stop me.”
“I knew that if we introduced Penny payments, Enple and Guble would push back. If I’d intended to stop you, I would have done it a long time ago.”
He looked faintly moved.
“I’ve seen a lot of investors change their tune later on. Continue Capital really is different. I’m glad I took your money.”
Well, I hadn’t stopped Wechant back in my first life either, and that had led to a lawsuit too, but there was no need to bring that up.
Unlike Tom Scott, who was practically burning with fighting spirit, the faces of Block Valley’s founders were grim.
They’d already been through every kind of hardship as indie developers. Now, at the very moment when all that suffering might finally be rewarded, this disaster had landed on them.
It wasn’t just a matter of losing revenue. Their ability to keep growing their user base would be hit hard, and there was even a chance their existing players would turn away from them.
Charles asked carefully, “Do you really intend to sue?”
“We can’t just sit there and get pushed out.”
“But if we do sue, can we actually win? It feels like throwing eggs at a rock.”
“Are we the eggs?”
“Well. You’re not the rock, either.”
If an egg hits a rock, the egg is the one that breaks.
That was how low everyone thought our chances were.
I looked around at all of them and said, “This is how I see it. If you give the egg an ideology, it can crack the rock.”
“Huh?”
“Ideology?”
“What are you talking about...?”
They all stared at me as if to say, What the hell is this nonsense?
Well, how were Americans supposed to understand the meaning of the Supreme Dignity? Besides, it really was nonsense.
I’d just tossed it out there because I felt like it.
“Don’t worry. Trust me. Whatever happens with the lawsuit, it won’t hurt Block Valley’s success at all.”
At my words, the three of them finally looked a little relieved.
I decided to lay out the situation first.
“BlockGames doesn’t need to handle this lawsuit directly. Just put your name on the complaint and keep doing what you’re doing. Legend Games will take care of the actual case. That works, right?”
Tom Scott CEO nodded at once.
“Of course.”
“And the main target should be Enple.”
“Why?”
Enple and Guble both controlled the mobile app market, and both of them took the same 30 percent commission.
But there was a big difference between them.
“Enple’s NOS is a closed operating system, while Guble’s Andromeda is open source. Any company can use it without Guble’s permission, and customize it for its own smartphones.”
Most Andromeda phones came with Play Market installed, and most payments were processed there as well.
But there was nothing stopping users from installing another app marketplace instead.
For example, Cosmic smartphones made by Yuseong Electronics came with Cosmic Store preinstalled. So even if a game was kicked out of Play Market, users could still install it through another app market.
They could even skip the store entirely and download an APK file from the web.
Even so, Play Market still dominated Android phones by a huge margin. But because an escape route existed, Guble still had something to say for itself.
Enple was different.
On NOS, it was impossible to install any app marketplace other than Enstore, and downloads from the web were blocked as a security measure.
In effect, the operating system and the app store were one and the same.
“Either way, the core issue is the same. Suing both sides won’t change the result. But if we win the lawsuit against Enple, Guble won’t have any choice but to follow suit.”
Until just ten years ago, games could only be enjoyed on PC and consoles.
Then smartphones arrived, mobile games emerged, and now they had grown into the biggest platform in the entire market, swallowing up 60 percent of the game industry.
Thanks to that, Enple had become the third-largest game revenue generator, behind Wechant and Sonyu. Surprisingly, it was even higher than NS, which had declared that it was going all-in on games.
Wechant, Sonyu, and NS were all developers, publishers, and ESDs.
They acquired multiple game companies, made games in-house, distributed them, developed consoles, and even hosted all kinds of tournaments.
Enple, on the other hand, had overtaken NS with nothing but Enstore fees.
Given its monopoly-like hold on the mobile market, countless game companies were desperate to get on Enple’s good side and have their games serviced through Enstore.
There were already thousands of games waiting for review, and some companies had even gone so far as to modify their games to fit Enple’s rules.
Nobody dared to cross Enple’s mood.
And then, out of nowhere, two companies rose up against it.
Legend Games and BlockGames.
Johnny Myren, the vice president in charge of Enstore, was dumbfounded by their behavior.
They want to do business on Enstore and still not pay the fee?
It was the mindset of a thief, pure and simple.
Introducing Penny payments was an act that shattered Enstore’s order.
Until now, NightLight’s total Enstore revenue had been about 500 million dollars, which meant Enple had taken in 150 million dollars in fees.
If they removed these games, Enple’s revenue would also fall.
But if they didn’t crush the rebellion early, even the obedient users might start wavering. They had to show, clearly and decisively, what happened when someone defied Enple.
Johnny Myren reported to Tim Keaton CEO.
“Both Legend Games and BlockGames are refusing to comply with the request to remove Penny payments.”
“Then what do you recommend?”
“The rule is that any app that doesn’t follow policy gets removed from Enstore.”
Tim Keaton nodded.
“Then handle it according to policy.”
“Understood.”
Rumors that NightLight and Block Valley might be removed from the app marketplaces had been circulating for days.
That was why users rushed to download them before the axe fell, and the games recorded their highest daily download numbers yet.
Even so, once the games were actually taken down from the app marketplaces, a great many consumers were left stunned.
On game boards and forums, questions kept pouring in about how to download NightLight and Block Valley.
News that the two games had been removed from the app marketplaces shook the game industry to its core.
Everyone was watching closely, bracing for the fallout this would cause.
BlockGames had only just started to catch fire, but Legend Games was regarded as a heavyweight in the industry.
“So anyone who violates the fee policy gets kicked out immediately?”
“That just means they have no intention of lowering it anytime soon.”
“I get NightLight, but what about the games that Legend Games publishes, or the games using Surreal Engine? Are those safe?”
Since both companies’ investors were Continue Capital, the financial world was paying close attention as well.
“Does Continue Capital have something to do with this too?”
“Didn’t they implicitly approve it the moment they introduced Penny payments?”
“So what happens now? Are they really planning to go head-to-head with Enple and Guble?”
“Come on, no way...”
“So in the end, both games were kicked out.”
“It was expected.”
“Do you really intend to proceed with the lawsuit?”
“Yes. As a lawyer, how does it look to you?”
He was known as the CEO of Continue Capital and one of the world’s top investors, but his original profession had been law.
“Honestly, I’m not very familiar with this field.”
Law is immense, and precedent is endless. Even a lawyer didn’t necessarily know much outside their own specialty.
“Still, I think I know one thing for certain.”
“What is it?”
“That this side is at a disadvantage.”
“That’s a relief.”
“What do you mean?”
“It means your instincts as a lawyer still seem intact.”
David laughed out loud.
“The best outcome would be to settle it through negotiation, though...”
“Do you think the other side is even interested in negotiating?”
“I doubt it.”
The point of contention was the 30 percent in-app purchase fee.
Neither Enple nor Guble had the slightest intention of lowering that commission.
And this time, the situation was far more complicated than it had been back in my first life.
In the end, the only way forward was to take it all the way through court.
“Have you already lined up a law firm?”
“Already done.”
America was a country of lawsuits.
Everything began with a lawsuit and ended with one.
It was so extreme that there had once been a case where a judge sued a dry cleaner for 66 million dollars after claiming they’d lost the pants he had entrusted to them.
Korea followed the civil-law tradition and its codified statutes, but the United States followed common law and precedent. Rather than interpreting legal provisions mechanically, it gave broad discretion to the judge.
That meant winning a lawsuit required a good lawyer.
And a good lawyer was, naturally, an expensive lawyer. Just as there was no such thing as a cheap product that was also good, there was no such thing as a cheap lawyer who was excellent.
Fortunately, we had money.
“Is it the best law firm in California?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“The best law firms in California are already working for Enple and Guble.”
“Ah. Fair enough.”
They had more money than we did.
Still, I hired a firm with real talent. Once you meet them, I think you’ll like them.
Archer & Harrison.
It was a major law firm headquartered in LA.
As befit a country of lawsuits, America’s large law firms were bigger than most major corporations. In terms of both headcount and revenue, they could easily be called companies in their own right.
Founded about twenty years ago, it had built its name mainly through corporate litigation and now sat near the top of the American law-firm rankings.
I met two lawyers in the hotel’s conference room.
The middle-aged white man in glasses, in his mid-fifties, bowed politely.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you. I’m Nick Archer.”
As the name suggested, he was the managing partner of Archer & Harrison.
In a firm this size, it was rare for the managing partner to get personally involved in a case. But when the client was Continue Capital, the rules were different.
The woman standing beside him, likely in her late twenties, also lowered her head in greeting.
“Hello. I’m Fiona Harrison.”
Black hair, slightly dusky skin.
She looked mixed-race, and she was strikingly beautiful.
As the name suggested, she was not the managing partner of Archer & Harrison—rather, she was the daughter of Michael Harrison, the co-managing partner.
I extended my hand to them.
“Thank you for coming. It’s a pleasure to meet you. I’m Han Miru.”