Epic Games is reportedly suing two Fortnite players, alleging they have violated the game’s terms of service and EULA by cheating. TorrentFreak has obtained legal complaints filed in North Carolina federal court against two individuals. The documents claim that they are running afoul by “modifying and changing the game’s code, committing copyright infringement in the process.”
Epic warned players about potential action it might take. In a blog post last week, the studio said, “Let’s be straight for a second, nobody likes playing with cheaters. Not you, not me. Nobody.” It added that addressing cheating in Fortnite is “the highest priority across Epic Games.”
“We’re exploring every measure to ensure these cheaters are removed and stay removed from Fortnite Battle Royale and the Epic ecosystem. We don’t want to give too many clues about what we’re doing, but we are rolling out tools and will continue to do so,” the developer went on to say.
According to Epic, it has already banned “thousands” of players, and it will continue the bans as needed.
Epic’s lawsuits against the two alleged cheaters goes on to say that the defendants “use cheats in a deliberate attempt to destroy the integrity of, and otherwise wreak havoc in, the Fornite game. As Defendant[s] intend, this often ruins the game for the other players, and for the many people who watch ‘streamers.'”
As for why Epic is taking such a hard line against the supposed cheaters, the studio explained that one of the alleged cheaters was banned nine times already but created a new account every time to get back in. This person is also alleged to have written code for the hacks, which may explain why Epic is suing this person.
Epic is suing both parties for up to $150,000 in damages over copyright infringement. Another claim mentioned in the lawsuits is breach of contract and circumvention of technological measures. Go to TorrentFreak to get the full story.
This is not the only prickly situation that Epic is involved in right now over Fornite. PUBG developer Bluehole has threatened some kind of action against Epic over Fornite due to the game’s similarities with PUBG. Fortnite’s Battle Royale mode, which is free, recently passed 10 million players, so it’s clearly a huge hit.
One of the next new features coming to Battle Royale is a progression system, which is due out in the “next several weeks.” This will help in Epic’s “war against casual cheaters,” because the idea is they think twice about cheating if they know all of their progress will be reset if and when they banned.
Fortnite’s Battle Royale mode is available now on Xbox One, PS4, and PC.
