Epic Games Ends Antitrust Case With Samsung, Still In Legal Battle With Google

In September of last year, Epic Games filed a lawsuit against Samsung and Google over antitrust issues under the belief that the two companies had conspired against Epic by blocking third-party app stores, which is a result of the "Auto-Blocker" feature on Samsung devices blocking apps from "unauthorized" sources (anything other Google Play and Samsung Galaxy. This resulted in a long, arduous process for anyone who wanted to still a game from the Epic store on a Samsung device. Epic Games has held a long legal battle against Google since 2020, with the belief that Google is using anti-competitive tactics to prevent competitors from gaining any traction.

Official law document signed by judge James Donato on October 1st 2024, taking the case.

Following the September lawsuit, judge James Donato issued on October 7th 2024 that Google must allow alternative app stores on Android devices, and until November 1st 2027, Google cannot pay or provide discounts to app developers for launching their apps exclusively on Google Play or preinstall Google Play on new devices. On that same day, Google posted a blog supporting the result of the case, although on October 16th, they asked the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals to pause the changes as they wrote their own appeal to the case stating that ease of access to apps outside their authorized stores is unsafe to the consumers and creates confusion as to what apps they approve of.

Google's appeal to the result of the Epic Games vs. Google case.

The result of the appeal was that judge Donato did in fact put a pause on the required changes requested by Epic, although the aforementioned three-year long period of Google's deal with alternative app carriers still remained. On October 18th 2024, Google and Epic both gave statements to The Verge about the results of the appeal.

Quote From Google

We’re pleased with the District Court’s decision to temporarily pause the implementation of dangerous remedies demanded by Epic, as the Court of Appeal considers our request to further pause the remedies while we appeal. These remedies threaten Google Play’s ability to provide a safe and secure experience and we look forward to continuing to make our case to protect 100 million U.S. Android users, over 500,000 U.S. developers and thousands of partners who have benefited from our platforms.

Quote From Epic Games

Today the Court made it clear that Google’s appeal is meritless and rejected their request to delay opening up Android devices to competition while the appeal is ongoing. Google continues to use fearmongering and unsubstantiated security threats to protect their control over Android devices and continue extracting exorbitant fees. The pause in the injunction is merely a procedural step to allow the Ninth Circuit time to decide Google’s request to stay the injunction pending appeal.

There however is a light at the end of the proverbial tunnel. On July 7th 2025, Tim Sweeney announced on X that Epic Games would be dismissing its court case on Samsung, although we do not know any specifics as to how Samsung will address the concerns.

Quote From Tim Sweeney

We’re dismissing our court case against Samsung following the parties’ discussions. We are grateful that Samsung will address Epic’s concerns.

Given that the Samsung Unpacked event happens on July 9th, it seems likely that this played some role in the outcome. The new phones may not have the Auto-Blocker feature on by default, or it may have added Epic Games to a list of whitelisted apps.