Long gone are the days of companies quietly banning the players who cheat in their games. It’s become increasingly common for developers to name and shame those involved, though Epic Games recently escalated things even further. It not only sued a Fortnite pro who cheated while qualifying for a championship tournament; it also made him publish a video admitting to it.
“Cheating is never a winning strat,” the competitive Fortnite X account posted on February 17. “We took legal action against a player who shared their account to unfairly qualify for FNCS. Now they’re banned from Fortnite tournaments forever and their undeserved prize money was donated to charity.”
The notice linked to a YouTube video posted by Morgan “RepulseGod” Bamford that elaborated on what went down. “I shared my Epic Games account with another user, Forbes, to qualify for the 2023 Fortnite Championship Series Grand Finals,” a screenshot from the silent video read. “My actions violated Epic’s rules and I was disqualified from the tournament.”
The video goes on to explain that Epic sued Bamford and took back his winnings as part of the settlement, which were subsequently donated to the Child’s Play charity. While the exact amount wasn’t mentioned, Forbes went on to place first in the FNCS 2023 – Major 3: Oceania – Grand Finals for a total prize of $10,000. Prior to that, Bamford had total life winnings of over $70,000 in pro Fortnite.
“Cheating in tournaments ruins the fun for the players who earned their spot in tournaments and I apologize to the Fortnite community for my actions,” he wrote. The comments under the video, which has already been viewed over 200,000 times, ate it up. “I won’t ever cheat in Fortnite again,” Bamford wrote, to which one user responded, “No shit bruh you banned lmfao.”
Tens of thousands of cheaters are banned from online multiplayer games like Call of Duty every month, but it’s rarer for companies to have to step in an punish top players in the community. Epic no doubt hopes that making an example out of Bamford will dissuade others from playing fast and lose with its terms of service and making a mockery of its tournaments.
It’s hard to imagine what more it could do at this point. Maybe anyone caught cheating in the lead-up to the Fortnite Champion Series 2025 will be forced to do a public walk of shame at the September Global Championship grand finals.
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