Epic Games has been fined by the Federal Trade Commission and will have to pay a penalty of more than half a billion dollars! This decision was made on Monday, December 19.
Fortnite Battle Royale players will receive $240 million from the FTC due to the lawsuit. In addition, Epic will be forced to change certain things in its popular video game and make it safer for younger players.
If you would like to know more details and find out how much players will receive, this article has everything you need to know.
Epic Games will have to pay $240 million to Fortnite players
According to the FTC, Epic Games has violated the COPPA act and will have to pay a massive penalty over that. Additionally, the video game publisher will have to provide a refund to Fortnite Battle Royale players.
Epic will have to pay the penalty for “relief over allegations the company violated the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) and deployed design tricks, known as dark patterns, to dupe millions of players into making unintentional purchases.”
This is the largest penalty ever obtained for violating an FTC rule. Additionally, Epic will have to pay $245 million to refund customers for its dark patterns and billing practices. This is also the largest refund case in FTC history.
“As our complaints note, Epic used privacy-invasive default settings and deceptive interfaces that tricked Fortnite users, including teenagers and children.”
Lina M. Khan, FTC chairwoman
Considering that the video game has more than 400 million players worldwide, the amount that players receive will not be significant. However, there is a good chance that every Fortnite Battle Royale player will receive free V-Bucks.
In the past, Epic Games has settled several class-action lawsuits by sending Fortnite players V-Bucks. Due to this, we can expect it to happen once again.
Free v bucks will be awesome
Yes free stuff us always amazing
Same on you guys 🙂