Fortnite video game maker Epic Games on Monday (Sept 30) accused Alphabet's Google and Samsung, the world's largest Android phone manufacturer, of conspiring to protect Google's Play store from competition.

Epic filed a lawsuit in US federal court in California alleging that a Samsung mobile security feature called Auto Blocker was intended to deter users from downloading apps from sources other than the Play store or Samsung's Galaxy store, which the Korean company chose to put on the back burner.

Samsung and Google are violating US antitrust law by reducing consumer choice and preventing competition that would make apps less expensive, said US-based Epic, which is backed by China's Tencent.

"It's about unfair competition by misleading users into thinking competitors' products are inferior to the company's products themselves," Epic Chief Executive Tim Sweeney told reporters.

"Google is pretending to keep the user safe saying you're not allowed to install apps from unknown sources. Well, Google knows what Fortnite is as they have distributed it in the past."

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