Epic Games recently announced a settlement in its antitrust lawsuit against Samsung. Tim Sweeney, the company’s president and majority stakeholder, shared via social media that they have resolved their issues after discussing with Samsung. The concerns revolved around Samsung’s Auto Blocker security feature, introduced with the One UI 6.0 update.
Originally launched in October 2023 as an optional feature, Auto Blocker was designed to prevent app installations from sources other than the Samsung Galaxy Store and Google Play Store. By July 2024, it became a default setting. Epic Games was particularly vocal about this change, noting that the process to install apps from other sources required an arduous 21-step process, full of warnings and hurdles. They argued that this mirrored Google’s restrictive “Unknown Sources” process.
Epic highlighted that this feature was Samsung’s first attempt at adding barriers for users seeking apps outside the mainstream stores, a move they saw as contradicting the jury’s unanimous verdict in Epic’s previous lawsuit against Google. In that case, it was determined that Google had engaged in anticompetitive practices by keeping the Play Store as the dominant marketplace on Android devices. The ruling required Google to allow alternative app stores and barred them from offering exclusive incentives to developers.
After their courtroom battles, the Epic Games Store eventually landed on Android and iOS devices—though only in Europe for the latter—on August 16, 2024, marking a significant win for Epic’s efforts to diversify app distribution.
