Costs aside, you're still weighing up "the case", like it's a definite, or that by responding to a legal letter, that it's definitely not. In real life it's neither of those things.
Very few people actually litigate unless they have very strong grounds on well trodden rights. I'm trying to establish any grounds in other comments, but any lawyer looking to litigate this is going to have to warn to their clients that they're not going to win against Goliath. When you're dealing with a family that's just lost its only income, hiring a lawyer is even more unlikely.
And even if Google reads and responds with the best letter, solid reasons, the bulk of a real legal defence, short of some backtracking or a large payoff, there's no reason the devs wouldn't go on to sue.
For a case which would take a junior and a massive pile of existing case law and afternoon to dismiss, I don't see that making a new penpal here helps Google. It might be ten times the amount to read and respond to a letter, but it's twenty times less likely to happen.