Asia Tech Wire (Oct 8) -- A California judge has sided with game developer Epic Games, ordering Google to open Android for third-party app stores.

Judge James Donato issued a final ruling on Monday in the long-running antitrust lawsuit that Epic Games has launched against Google.

Donato ruled that Google must offer alternatives to its Google Play store for downloading apps on Android phones for three years starting this November.

Google will also be restricted from paying companies fees or sharing revenue in exchange for them dropping competition with the Google Play store.

In addition, Google must allow competing Android app stores to access Google Play's catalog of apps.

Later Google released a statement saying that it would appeal the judgment in the Epic Games antitrust case and asked the court to suspend the injunction.

Google argued that the ruling ignored the fact that Apple and Android compete.