“The purpose of this is not to protect the user from malware.”
Image credit: Epic Games
Epic has today announced major new litigation as it takes its battle against existing app store monopolies to former ally Samsung, as well as continued rival Google, in a fresh front that may see a return to the courtroom.
One key feature found on Samsung phones forms the cornerstone of Epic Games’ new complaint: a setting known as Auto Blocker that users must turn off to install Epic Games and Fortnite.
“The instigator of this complaint is one and only one thing: that Samsung recently introduced a piece of technology it calls Auto Blocker, which blocks side-loading of software – it blocks the installation of software from stores that aren’t its own, or the Google Play store,” Epic boss Tim Sweeney said in a press briefing ahead of the litigation being made public.
Epic suggests Auto Blocker is an attempt at collusion between Google and Samsung, where the former hands off what Epic deems to be anti-competitive practices to a major partner, ahead of firmer rules being enforced on Google itself.
In practice, Auto Blocker works similarly to the existing “scare screens” and additional technical steps on other phones that make downloading software outside of official sources – such as the Google Play and iPhone App Store – more difficult.
Users attempting to download the Epic Game Store, for example, are warned in technical and scary language that they are risking the safety of their device, and required to go disable Auto Blocker from within their phone’s settings via a fairly laborious process to continue.
Already, Android’s sequence of alerts and extra steps dissuades around 50 percent of users from going on to complete the download, Sweeney said. Samsung’s Auto Blocker steps add further “friction” on top of that, he continued.
“For your security, your phone currently isn’t allowed to install unknown apps from this source,” one alert message reads.
“Well, Google knows what Fortnite is, they’ve distributed it in the past,” Sweeney noted. “Google knows what Epic Game Store is, they’ve dealt with us. So this warning in itself is misleading.”
Epic is unhappy with both Google and Samsung here, as users must allow Google’s Chrome browser to install software (such as the Epic Game Store) and then deal with Samsung’s Auto Blocker itself.
“[This is] a new Samsung warning that came in after we won Epic vs. Google,” Sweeney said. “A feature Samsung turned on by default for all [new] users which caught us off-guard.”
Sweeney described Samsung’s own alerts during the installation process also as “misleading”, as once again the generic warning message describes Epic Game Store as an “unknown app”.
“Samsung knows what Fortnite is,” he continued. “Fortnite has been presented in numerous of their stage presentations and streams to the public, they’ve been marketing it in a partnership where we’ve spent tens of millions of dollars together. Samsung knows Epic Game Store. And yet they’re calling it an ‘unknown app’.”
Samsung describes Auto Blocker as a feature that helps “keep ypu safe from security threats, suspicious activity, and privacy risks” and also works to block malware in messaging apps, and warns you when unknown commands or software updates are initiated by devices connected via USB. In short, turning it off is made to sound like a bad move.
“It makes it pretty much hopeless for any store to ever compete with the Samsung Galaxy Store and Google Play store,” Sweeney said. “It’s intentional. The purpose of this is not to protect the user from malware. Windows and Mac have perfectly good mechanisms to protect against malware, and Epic completely supports platforms protecting against malware.
“What’s happening here is different: it’s just trying to obstruct against competition by making it super hard, and one of the key elements of this obstruction is presenting misleading messages to the user which present software as – which the platform maker know about, knows is safe and secure – [and is instead] characterising it as unknown and potentially harmful to your device. That’s what our litigation is about.
“It’s about unfair competition by making it seem like competitor’s products inferior to the company’s products themselves.”
And this, of course, is a huge problem for Epic Games as it chases ambitious smartphone install targets for its storefront and Fortnite. Sweeney revealed that Epic Game Store had now hit 10m mobile installs, but the company is still chasing a much higher 100m target by the year’s end.
Epic says it is launching the legal action now following the recent move by Samsung to have Auto Blocker switched on by default for new handsets.
In a statement, Epic said its lawsuit claims the “recent implementation of the Auto Blocker feature was intentionally crafted in coordination with Google to preemptively undermine the US District Court’s remedy following the jury’s verdict in Epic’s case against Google”.
“The jury found that Google’s app store practices are illegal, including the unlawful agreements Google enters into with phone manufacturers such as Samsung.”
Epic says its aim with these legal proceedings is to get Auto Blocker turned off by default to “enable competition”.
Eurogamer has contacted Samsung and Google for comment.
The Epic Game Store recently launched on Android devices and on iPhone and iPad in the European Union, offering a way to play Fortnite once again – following Epic’s previous legal drama with Google and Android, which it has always portrayed as a fight against their platform store monopolies.
“We’ve probably lost $1bn dollars… but what’s the price of freedom?” Sweeney previously said.
