Epic Games have been ordered to pay $275 million for violating children’s privacy law as well as refund $245 million to customers after tricking them into making purchases they didn’t intend to make.
“Epic used privacy-invasive default settings and deceptive interfaces that tricked Fortnite users, including teenagers and children,” Lina Khan, chairwoman of the Federal Trade Commission said of the verdict.
As reported here by The Times, Epic has already eliminated pay-to-win and pay-to-progress mechanics and will also introduce an explicit choice for saving payment information.
Fortnite has become especially popular with younger gamers. Credit: Epic Games
Epic also said it had introduced stricter features to protect younger gamers such as easily accessible parental controls and a system which requires a parent to enter a PIN code to authorise a purchase as well as spending limits for players under 13 years of age.
Epic Games have also been embroiled in a legal battle with Apple since 2020 when Apple removed Fortnite from its app store after Epic Games introduced new payment methods within Fortnite itself.
A judge ruled in favour of Apple, but the case has been appealed and is still on-going with a result expected next year.
