back to article Epic payment: Fortnite maker pays record $520m to settle FTC case

The owner of Fortnite is paying the FTC an Epic amount of cash after a pair of unanimous 4-0 decisions found it guilty of violating children's privacy and tricking customers into making unwanted purchases. Under the settlements, Epic Games will pay $275 million to the FTC for violating the Children's Online Privacy Protection …

  1. ecofeco Silver badge

    Insert clever game pun here

    Good. Glad to hear there are beginning to be consequences for the ridiculous amounts of greed.

    1. Phones Sheridan Silver badge

      Re: Insert clever game pun here

      For greed see Star Trek Fleet Command where players are paying tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars for pixelated star ships. I don’t know which worries me more, that Scopely charge such eye watering amounts, or that they have a fan base that is willing to mortgage the house to get an advantage in PVP.

      1. NoneSuch Silver badge
        Pirate

        Re: Insert clever game pun here

        I have avoided Epic successfully and am REALLY glad I did. Never seen such sleazy tactics to undermine not only their competitors, but their own player base as well.

    2. teknopaul

      Re: Insert clever game pun here

      It will be interesting to see in the coming months how many game developers change their tactics.

      I suspect close to zero. Perhaps minus zero as apps move to app stores to swallow the blame.

      And any minor change in app store policy makes waves in industry.

      A lesson indeed.

      1. Zippy´s Sausage Factory
        Pint

        Re: Insert clever game pun here

        The interesting thing to me is probably going to be how Apple and Google change their app store policies following this judgement. No doubt those who will shout loudest about it will be the ones who are already the largest abusers.

        We definitely need a popcorn icon, but for now, I'll settle for this -->

    3. DS999 Silver badge

      Consequences?

      They've made tens of billions in profit over the years, and are paying a quarter billion in fines. If those are the consequences of criminal behavior where do I sign up?

  2. teknopaul

    Lesson?

    In other news, all their apps are still available right now on major app stores.

    And via direct downloads nautrally.

    Chances of this stopping other apps from forcing users into handing over credit card details (Google app store does it) are below zero.

  3. Terry 6 Silver badge

    Is it only me...

    ...who wonders how the people in these companies who deliberately create dark patterns and the like, cynically creating software for manipulating and exploiting people, can sleep at night? Who chooses a job in software design or coding that is really just the same as three card trick merchants and Ponzi sellers?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Is it only me...

      Have you ever been chased down 5th ave by irate rubes and a couple of cops?

      Of course you would choose to work for Epic.

      1. Terry 6 Silver badge

        Re: Is it only me...

        Can we have a translation please.

        1. julian abbs

          Re: Is it only me...

          "Have you ever been chased down 5th ave by irate rubes and a couple of cops?

          Of course you would choose to work for Epic."

          Translation:

          "Have you ever suffered the consequences of being a card shark on the streets of New York?

          Working for Epic would of course be an improvement on that."

          Shee, you guys are so unhip it's a wonder your bums don't fall off.

          1. Cthrag Yaska

            Re: Is it only me...

            Our what sir?

  4. very angry man

    stuff that comes out of the back end of male cattle

    "We share the underlying principles of fairness, transparency and privacy that the FTC enforces, and the practices referenced in the FTC's complaints are not how Fortnite operates. We will continue to be upfront about what players can expect when making purchases, ensure cancellations and refunds are simple, and build safeguards that help keep our ecosystem safe and fun for audiences of all ages."

    I CALL BULLSHIT.

  5. gnasher729 Silver badge

    Apple will read this very carefully. For example, if you make in-app purchases on Apples App Store, Apple can decide to refund the money if you complain, and take the money from the owner of the app. No wonder you don’t want to sell through apple if you intend to trick your users into purchases they don’t want.

    I suppose they didn’t like apple not allowing “invasive default privacy settings” either.

  6. aaaashy

    what an utterly repugnant company! what is it about coders who only want to use their talents to drain money away from others?

    1. breakfast Silver badge

      Epic are a huge business, I doubt the coders have any hand in these decisions, I'm sure there are many layers of executive who are telling them to hide those refund buttons as deep as possible.

      1. Terry 6 Silver badge

        Sorry, this is about actions, not decisions. Obeying orders is no defence.

        1. crg the new one

          I'm pretty sure it's like this:

          - the Settings, Account, Registration or whatever Buy screens and user flows are all fully configurable down to ordering of buttons, prompts and notifications

          - developers build that, other business guys configure them after consulting with their legal team

          And everything is configurable specifically because Epic may need to quickly change that or the other in some country because of such court decision.

          Developers are not to blame, the business guys are to blame. And those lawyers who have no moral code.

  7. jmch Silver badge
    Boffin

    Remorse???

    "We share the underlying principles of fairness, transparency and privacy that the FTC enforces, and the practices referenced in the FTC's complaints are not how Fortnite operates."

    Translation - We are completely in opposition to the principles of fairness, transparency and privacy, and in fact were actively and deliberately working against them because that's what made us the most money. We continue to be completely in opposition to the principles of fairness, transparency and privacy because leopards don't change their spots, and the practices referenced in the FTC's complaints are exactly how Fortnite operated. It's not how Fortnite operates now because we've been forced to reluctantly make those changes.

    "We will continue to be upfront about what players can expect when making purchases, ensure cancellations and refunds are simple, and build safeguards that help keep our ecosystem safe and fun for audiences of all ages."

    Translation - We were not being upfront about what players can expect when making purchases, not ensuring cancellations and refunds were simple, and not building safeguards that helped keep our ecosystem safe and fun for audiences of all ages. From now on we have to do all that useless* shit because they made us.

    *useless to our bottom line, not to our users because who cares about them as long as they pay up?

  8. Scott 26

    "The FTC also alleged account holders were charged without expressed consent, "

    Can they go after Amazon (Music) next?

    Got a new TV, saw it had the Alexa app - great, will use it for online/streaming radio stations. But unbeknown to me it also signed me up to Amazon Music (Unlimited - the highest subscription tier)

  9. Stu 18

    I really hope they go after Microsoft / Xbox next

    Have you tried to set up and use 'family' settings for you kids on Xbox? I have, I'm a tech with 30 years experience and I suggest to you it is harder than working with O365 admin / Amazon / Active Directory / BGP mikrotik / Node/React all combined.

    It is clearly designed as a legal BS excuse instead of something useful. As far as I could tell it's either kids have no access to anything - including actually playing games OR you turn it all off - including allowing X rated content (hence giving Microsoft the excuse of parental consent) just so the kids can share Minecraft.

    I have no idea how any non tech parent could possibly navigate it.

  10. IGotOut Silver badge

    So....

    ...will Apple, Google and Microsoft refund 30% of the takings as well, after all they were complicit in this scam.

    1. gnasher729 Silver badge

      Re: So....

      If there is an in-app purchase for $1.00 then Apple keeps $0.30 for the work they did. If you scammed your customer and they complain, apple will give $1.00 to the customer. They will take $1.00 out of your next payment and you are lucky they don’t charge you for the refund.

      And how do you propose apple would be “complicit” in anything?

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