Epic Games, the publisher of the famous Fortnite game, was fined $520 million. Reasons: the lack of protection of the personal data of underage players and dubious commercial practices.
For several years, Fortnite is a true video game success that continues to grow, so much so that it is one of the most popular games of all time. This is partly due to its economic model since it is a game of the type free-to-play with microtransactions – in short, it is free but players can buy items, equipment and costumes (skins) with real money. As a result, the youngest, the real core targets, have easy access to it and they are likely to give in to the appeal of the bank card – from their parents… A point that attracted the attention of the American Agency for Consumer Protection (FTC), responsible for ensuring the application of consumer law and the control of anti-competitive commercial practices. She accuses Epic Gamesthe developer of Fortnite, for not having been able to protect young players sufficiently. Practices that affect both PC and smartphone gamers – so the case has nothing to do with the publisher’s current war with Apple. Epic Games finally reached an agreement by agreeing to pay a fine amounting to 520 million dollars.
Fortnite: young players trapped to checkout
The FTC’s complaint focuses on two items in particular, namely violating underage player privacy law and inducing in-game purchases – so much so that they didn’t necessarily aware of making a very real payment – hence the respective fines of 275 million and 245 million dollars. A total sum that will be returned, in the form of refunds, to players who have been victims of the in-app purchase options of Fortnite.
The purchasing system Fortnite strongly encourages the youngest to buy items in the game with the click of a mouse or the pressure of a finger, without the consent of their parents. Worse still, the terms of purchase have been simplified over the years to simplify the transaction, to the point that customers sometimes didn’t even realize what they were doing. For example, the commands “Buy” and “Preview object” are extremely close and can easily be confused when manipulated a little too quickly. In addition, the game does not require confirmation and has long saved bank card data – and, of course, without the consent of the owners. In short, everything is done to encourage impulse purchases. These techniques are part of dark patterns, manipulation techniques aimed at influencing user behavior to the advantage of sites, platforms and merchants (see our article). More than a million complaints from parents, whose children have spent hundreds of dollars without their knowledge, have been sent to the company.
To make matters worse, the FTC also points to a simplified purchase system, compared to a very confusing refund system. The command “Cancel purchase” is thus written in small at the bottom of the screen, and you have to hold down a key for several seconds to validate it – and that’s after you have managed to find it in the settings. Since then, Epic Games has added an additional level of validation for a purchase and introduced a spending limit for players under 13.
Epic Games: minors exposed to cyberbullying
The FTC also accuses Epic Games of having unlawfully collected the private data of minors, which constitutes a violation of the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA). More precisely, Fortnite activates by default the communication interface – written as well as oral –, allowing malicious adults to easily contact minors, with all the abuses that entails. “To through Fortnite, children have been threatened and harassed, including sexually”, explains the FTC in the document submitted to the federal judge. Since then, Epic Games has implemented several parental control options, including a new type of restricted account for players under the age of 13 (15 in France). Without parental consent, they cannot access certain features, such as online shopping and chat.
Epic Games wanted to react in a statementexplaining that the company has been constantly evolving the functions, rules of use and payment mechanisms since the launch of Fortnite in 2017.”There has never been a pay-to-win or pay-to-progress mechanic in Fortnite’s player versus player experiences. And we eliminated paid random item loot boxes starting in 2019” he explains. “We accepted this agreement because we want Epic to be at the forefront of consumer protection and provide the best experience for our players”. The company states that, in recent years, it has carried out “changes for [s’]ensure that our ecosystem is in line with what our players and regulators expect”. It now explicitly asks players if they want to save their payment information for future use.