Epic Games president and majority stakeholder Tim Sweeney announced that his company has settled the antitrust lawsuit it filed in September 2024 against Samsung. Writing on X, he said:
We’re dismissing our court case against Samsung following the parties’ discussions. We are grateful that Samsung will address Epic’s concerns.
Epic's concerns were related to Samsung's introduction of the Auto Blocker security feature, which launched with the One UI 6.0 update. Auto Blocker was originally added in October 2023 as an opt-in feature that would disable app installation from sources other than the Samsung Galaxy Store and the Google Play Store. However, in July 2024, Auto Blocker became enabled by default. Epic Games stated:
Auto Blocker defaulting to “on” requires an exceptionally onerous 21 step process to download an app outside of the Google Play Store or the Samsung Galaxy Store, mirroring Google’s “Unknown Sources” process with multiple steps and scare screens. Auto Blocker is the first time that Samsung has imposed additional friction on consumers who try to get apps outside of the Google Play Store or the Samsung Galaxy Store.
Auto Blocker undermines the jury’s unanimous decision in Epic v. Google, specifically that “Google entered into one or more agreements that unreasonably restrained trade in a relevant antitrust market” including “Agreements with OEMs [original equipment manufacturers] that sell mobile devices”.
Epic Games is, of course, referring to its historic win in the anticompetitive lawsuit against Google, dating back to December 11, 2023, when Judge James Donato of the United States District Court for the Northern District of California ruled that Google had violated antitrust laws by maintaining the Play Store as the dominant storefront for Android. This included making deals to ensure that apps would be published exclusively through the Play Store and requiring that the Play Store be installed on third-party devices. The Judge also ordered Google to allow alternative app stores on the Android system and temporarily prohibited them from offering monetary incentives to developers who release exclusively on the Play Store.
The Epic Games Store eventually launched on Android and iOS (although only in Europe in the latter case, at least for now) on August 16, 2024, following Epic's strenuous legal efforts against Google and Apple.
About the author: With over two decades of experience in gaming journalism, Alessio Palumbo has led the gaming vertical at Wccftech since August 2015. He started working at a young age for Italian websites like Everyeye.it, Gamestar.it, Nextgame.it, and Multiplayer.it before kickstarting the indie English-language publication Worlds Factory as its founder and Editor in Chief. In the last decade, he has coordinated the overall output of Wccftech's gaming section, managed PR relations, assigned reviews, produced daily news coverage, edited gaming content as needed, and delivered game reviews. Arguably, his trademark content is the long series of exclusive developer interviews that have been cited by Wikipedia and by the biggest news media and gaming publications. His passion for technology also makes him knowledgeable when it comes to gaming hardware and tech. His favorite genres include RPGs, MMORPGs, and action/adventure games.
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