Key Takeaways
- The FTC has begun refunding consumers affected by unlawful purchases in Fortnite.
- A $72 million settlement is being paid out to over 600,000 applicants.
- You can still apply for a refund if you’re in the United States.
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is now paying consumers affected by Fortnite‘s “unlawful charges,” using money from a $72 million settlement between the government agency and Epic Games.
According to the FTC, Epic Games “unlawfully charged players for unwanted purchases, let children rack up unauthorised charges without their parent’s permission, and blocked some users who disputed wrongful charges from accessing their purchased content.” This settlement was announced in December 2022 and finalised in March 2023. It only affects purchases made between January 2017 and September 2022.
Anti Consumer Practices
In the suit, the FTC also highlighted some of the deceptive practices used in Fortnite to try and extract money from consumers. These included charging players as soon as they woke their game from sleep mode by automatically putting the player’s cursor on a purchase button, or including a purchase button right after a preview button for a cosmetic item. It’s not difficult to imagine a child button mashing in both of these cases and accidentally racking up charges.
The settlement has compelled Epic Games to cease these practices, requiring “positive consent” from the player before purchases. This means you’ll need to explicitly agree to a purchase before you make it, more-or-less eliminating one-touch purchases. The agreement also blocks Epic Games from taking away purchased content if the consumer disputes the charges, a practice the company was previously known to engage in.
The total number of payments being refunded by the FTC is 629,344. If you’re in the United States and have been affected by these anti-consumer practices, you can still apply for a refund on the FTC’s website.
Epic Games recently announced Lego Brick Life, a social roleplaying mode for Lego Fortnite. These are 32-player servers where players can design a home and get a job. The new mode appears to be inspired by Grand Theft Auto roleplaying servers, and is set to launch on December 12.
Starting life as a tower defense game, Fortnite has become one of the biggest video games out there. Its battle royale mode dominates popular culture, featuring concerts by megastar musicians and crossovers with just about every brand imaginable, from Marvel to the NFL.