Fortnite
The Fortnite saga continues — The US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has announced a new wave of compensation for players. This time, more than $126 million has been allocated.
The reason for the compensation was numerous complaints about the so-called «dark patterns» — design elements that pushed players to make random purchases. They allowed Epic Games to allow children to make payments without parental consent. In addition, they sometimes issued bans to those who wanted to cancel payments through the bank. In the end, in 2023, the company was ordered to pay a fine of $245 million — this money should be fully used for compensation.
And the refund process is in full swing — the FTC has sent out more than 969 thousand payments via PayPal and checks. The amount of each is not disclosed, but the numbers are subject to change. Since this is the second wave of refunds, the previous one can be taken as a guide. In December 2024, players received an average of $114. At that time, 629,344 people were compensated — the total amount was more than $70 million. If we look at the total, the new stage will bring the amount of payments to more than $200 million.
Applications for compensation can be submitted until July 9, 2025. This is an additional period of two weeks — for those who did not have time during the first phase, which lasted from September 2023 to January 2024. To do this, you need to apply on the website www.ftc.gov/Fortnite.
Interestingly, the Fortnite case is not just a big one, but a record-breaking one in terms of compensation in the field of micropayments. Back in 2022, the FTC reported that this scheme affected millions of gamers, and in the first stages of the investigation alone, it sent more than 37 million letters to people who were potentially eligible for a refund.
It is noteworthy that only recently Epic Games celebrated a victory over Apple. After five years of litigation, the company was able to forced «apple» to return Fortnite to the App Store and added «trolling cashback». So on the Epic Games street, it’s not always «broken lights» because of millions in fines.
Source: FTC