EPIC gives after: Laws against Samsung posted for controversial car blockers!

EPIC gives after: Laws against Samsung posted for controversial car blockers!

Bremerhaven, Deutschland - The dispute between Epic Games and Samsung gets an unexpected turn. On July 7, 2025, Epic Games announced yesterday that they withdrew their lawsuit against the smartphone manufacturer Samsung. This lawsuit, which got rolling in September 2023, mainly dealt with Samsung's controversial "Auto Blocker". This safety function on the devices of Samsung prevented the installation of apps from not authorized sources, which Epic regarded as a obstacle to competition for alternative app marketplaces, in particular its own Epic Games Store. The dispute had also accused allegations of an illegal agreement between Samsung and Google, since Epic suspected that such measures should hinder the spread of their own platform.

With the withdrawal of the lawsuit, Epic follows a new approach and shows that it may be working towards an agreement that was only known shortly before Samsung's next unpacked event. Notification of the exact conditions that were agreed for this have been agreed. Tim Sweeney, the CEO of Epic Games, said his gratitude that Samsung is working on the clarification of Epic’s concerns. So far, however, it remains unclear whether the Auto Blocker will simply be deactivated in the future or whether a new release process for third-party apps will be introduced.

background of the conflict

In recent years, Epic Games has worked intensively to establish its own app store on other mobile devices. In 2023, the company achieved an important antitrust victory against Google. Afterwards, Epic filed a lawsuit against Samsung to draw attention to the problems of the car blocker, which makes it difficult to sideloading apps and thus hinder the installation of the Epic Games Store.

This argument was not the only challenge with which Epic was faced with. The problems began when the company violated Google and Apple's payment guidelines by accepting external payments in Fortnite. This led to the removal of the Fortnite app from the respective stores. While Apple won the legal dispute and Fortnite recently returned, Epic ultimately had success against Google by proving that Google had actively hindered the development of other app stores and theirs. In this complex mixture it becomes clear that it is not just a single dispute, but also about the basic competitive landscape in the Store environment app.

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