• Fortnite maker Epic Games is suing Samsung for allegedly making it more difficult to download and play Fortnite across its devices.
• It says that Samsung’s Auto Blocker feature unfairly treats the Fortnite app downloading as “malicious activity.”
• Google has called the lawsuit “meritless and dangerous.”

The company behind the super-popular battle royale shooter Fortnite is accusing Samsung of placing many extra steps before downloading and installing the game on their devices, allegedly making it too difficult with half of potential players giving up before they get to see gameplay.

Epic Games, no stranger to lawsuits, says in a legal report it filed earlier this week that Samsung has placed 21 steps before people can download and play Fortnite on its devices, including additional security warning screens and settings menus.

According to the BBC, Samsung is looking to “vigorously contest” what it calls “baseless claims.” The process to download, install and play Fortnite on other Android smartphones takes 12 steps usually, Epic Games says, instead of the 21 on Samsung devices.

It says a Samsung feature called Auto Blocker is making it more difficult for Samsung owners to get into Fortnite games, and with Samsung cornering 19 percent of the global smartphone market according to Counterpoint Research, this represents a significant amount of players – and money – that Epic Games believes it is missing out on.

Epic says that the Auto Blocker feature treats Fortnite downloads as “malicious activity” and makes users jump through extra hoops to get into the game. Samsung has meanwhile defended the feature.

“The features integrated into our devices are designed in accordance with Samsung’s core principles of security, privacy, and user control, and we remain fully committed to safeguarding users’ personal data,” it said.

The problem with Samsung’s Auto Blocker adding more steps likely stems from Fortnite not being available to download on the Samsung or Google Play Store. Instead, users have to travel to the Epic Games Store on browser to download the game’s app.

Usually, authorised apps on these storefronts are downloaded and played within seconds. Epic Games says that Google and Samsung should already know that Fortnite is a legitimate app so they shouldn’t be blocking it with privacy and protection software.

This seems a little bit like blowing smoke up Epic’s own behind and looking for special treatment to us, but we don’t own a game played by more than 215 million people every month so what do we know?

Fortnite used to be on the Google Play Store, but you snooze, you lose as they say. Google doesn’t seem to be too happy about Epic Games dragging Android’s name into the whole situation. Google engineering VP Dave Kleidermacher called the lawsuit “meritless and dangerous.”

“While Android allows sideloading, Google and the security community have warned users for years about the real risks associated with downloading apps directly from the web,” he added in a thread on X.

“To make this about access to a game is deliberately misleading; this is about user safety. And Epic’s lawsuit puts their corporate interests above user protections,” Kleidermacher concludes.