[ad_1]
New Delhi: Play to win, real-money skill gaming platform, WinZo, on Tuesday filed for an injunction at the Delhi high court against Google’s recently announced pilot programme allowing distribution of daily fantasy sports (DFS) and rummy apps on its mobile apps marketplace, the Google Play Store. The court filing by WinZo cites Google’s decision to select DFS and rummy apps in its pilot programme as “discriminatory” and an “arbitrary classification”.
WinZo’s move comes two weeks after Google, on 7 September, announced a “limited time pilot programme” that would allow DFS and rummy apps to be distributed through its official Play Store in India. The programme leaves out real-money skill gaming apps, such as play-to-win titles that feature under the WinZo umbrella.
DFS, or fantasy games, refer to titles where players choose a team of athletes to represent their own fictional team on any sport, such as cricket and football. The performance of this ‘fantasy’ team depends on how the chosen athletes perform on any given day, and the correspondence of this real-life performance leads to virtual winnings for players of the platform. Rummy, on the other hand, refers to card games, which Google classifies as a game of skill, and not chance.
“A player must strategize, memorize the fall of cards, and arrange valid card sets and/or sequences by picking and discarding cards from a closed deck and an open deck, offered in either 10, 13, 21, or 27-card formats, and in accordance with the rules followed for the offline versions of the same formats conventionally played in India,” Google said in its description.
Google regularly conducts pilot programmes for various aspects around the world, which includes its pilot policy on DFS and rummy apps. These pilots are conducted to test deployment of new technologies, and vary across markets. The programmes are subject to change based on what the company learns from its pilot deployments, and can potentially alter over the course of time.
A Google spokesperson declined a request for a statement on the matter.
Saumya Singh Rathore, co-founder of WinZo, said that there have been “no engagement with the industry”, and “no evaluation of the impact” of this pilot programme from Google’s end. The company, in its court filings, said that selectively choosing the games in question may show others, such as WinZo itself, illegitimate titles, and thus be detrimental towards its business model.
Download The Mint News App to get Daily Market Updates & Live Business News.
[ad_2]
Source link
John Miller has been writing about science, gaming, and tech culture for over a decade. He’s a top-rated reviewer with extensive experience helping people find the best deals on tech and more.
