Half a billion dollar fine over Fortnite! Epic Games will pay huge compensation for violating children's privacy and encouraging players to make unintentional purchases

By: Anton Kratiuk | 15.03.2023, 14:58

In late 2022, the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) charged Epic Games with violating two major laws at once: violating children's privacy and encouraging unintentional purchases.

The first charge threatened Epic Games with a $275 million fine, the second with a $245 million fine.

Here's What We Know

The official FTC website revealed that Epic Games was ordered to pay a fine of $245 million for intentionally complicating the interface in Fortnite, resulting in provoking unintentional purchases.

An aggravating circumstance is the fact that the majority of such purchases were made by underage players, with no parental consent required for the transactions.

The said fine will be used to compensate the financial losses of the victims.

In addition, Epic Games has accepted charges of violating the online privacy of children and pledged to pay another $275 million in fines.

Epic Games is already working to make sure this situation doesn't happen again, tellingly, it took a public scandal and a half-billion (!) dollar fine to do so.