Epic Games, buoyed by the massive success of Fortnite, has spent the last few years throwing elbows in the mobile industry to get its app store on more phones. It scored an antitrust win against Google in late 2023, and the following year it went after Samsung for deploying “Auto Blocker” on its Android phones, which would make it harder for users to install the Epic Games Store. Now, the parties have settled the case just days before Samsung will unveil its latest phones.
The Epic Store drama began several years ago when the company defied Google and Apple rules about accepting outside payments in the mega-popular Fortnite. Both stores pulled the app, and Epic sued. Apple emerged victorious, with Fortnite only returning to the iPhone recently. Google, however, lost the case after Epic showed it worked behind the scenes to stymie the development of app stores like Epic’s.
Google is still working to avoid penalties in that long-running case, but Epic thought it smelled a conspiracy last year. It filed a similar lawsuit against Samsung, accusing it of implementing a feature to block third-party app stores. The issue comes down to the addition of a feature to Samsung phones called Auto Blocker, which is similar to Google’s new Advanced Protection in Android 16. It protects against attacks over USB, disables link previews, and scans apps more often for malicious activity. Most importantly, it blocks app sideloading. Without sideloading, there’s no way to install the Epic Games Store or any of the content inside it.