In another legal showdown, global technology major Google faces Delhi High Court scrutiny over its recent Play Store policy update for online gaming platforms.
This comes after Indian online gaming platform WinZO dragged Google to court claiming that the new policy selectively targeted Daily Fantasy Sports (DFS) and Rummy on the Google Play Store both of which allow real money to be wagered by players.
According to the gaming platform, the policy will leave out a large segment of other games which it says is skill-based, like carrom and car racing. Google has had a long-standing policy of not allowing games involving real money from being featured on its Play Store in India.
The tech giant earlier this month revised its policy and said it’s launching a year-long pilot project to allow DFS and rummy games to feature on its app store.
WinZO, which has a number of games on its platform, is seeking to restrain Google from implementing the classification. The gaming platform says it believes that Google’s policy can lead to distortions in the competitive Indian gaming ecosystem and will result in only a handful of gaming companies benefitting.
“Every other app store of the country including the Apple Store, Vivo, Oppo, Mi Store allows all skill-gaming products that are protected uniformly under the Constitution of India,” WinZO said. Google’s Play Store is the largest app distribution platform in India with a 97% market share in the Android-centric market.
