Epic Games Is Now Paying Out Players for Fortnite Lawsuit

Epic Games is paying out Fortnite players for as part of a lawsuit with the FTC. Fortnite is one of the biggest games on the planet and a large part of its audience are made up of kids. It’s a very shiny, accessible shooter with all of the biggest franchises that a kid would be familiar with from Marvel and Star Wars to DC and more. It’s a virtual toy box that thrives with its crossovers that allows players to make childhood dreams come true in-game. Although other games have tried to replicate Fortnite‘s success, no one is doing it at the level and scale that Epic Games does.

With that said, the key dangling nature of Fortnite for its younger audience has also created some troubles. The FTC accused Epic Games of “unlawfully” charging players for unwanted purchases by making it too easy to make in-game transactions without an extra confirmation step. The FTC claims that Epic outright tricked people for these transactions. On top of that, Epic Games would even go as far as banning players from the game if they tried to dispute these charges. This was largely a point of contention with parents who had unsupervised access to Fortnite and saw their credit card statement littered with in-game transactions.

This has resulted in the FTC requiring Epic Games to pay players out for some of its transactions and some players are reporting that they got as much as $250 back. These Fortnite refunds began back in December, but are picking back up now. This is all part of a lawsuit settlement worth $245 million.

“This payment is the result of a settlement between the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and Epic Games, the company responsible for the video game Fortnite,” reads a statement from the FTC that’s attached to payments. “According to the FTC, Epic Games tricked players into making unwanted in-game purchases, allowed children to make credit card purchases without their parents’ knowledge, and locked the accounts of customers who disputed wrongful charges with their credit card companies.”

All in all, it’s a pretty big chunk of change, but given Epic’s lucrative operation, they’ll be just fine. Epic also recently brought Fortnite back to iOS and has ensured that players can buy V-Bucks directly through Epic’s channels, offering various savings that would otherwise not be possible if Epic had to give a cut to other companies like Apple.