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Cheating in Fortnite? Epic Might Sue You

Wow, Epic wasn't kidding about prioritizing stopping cheaters.

Epic Games is not messing around when it comes to punishing Fortnite cheaters. As reported by Torrent Freak, the developer has filed lawsuits suing a couple of Fortnite players for cheating in the game’s Battle Royale mode.

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It was just last week when Epic announced it had banned “thousands” of cheaters, but it seems the developer felt just banning customers from playing the game wasn’t going far enough for the most egregious bad actors. Identified as Charles Vraspir and Brandon Broom, the accused are said to have manipulated Fortnite’s code and thus committed copyright infringement and violated the game’s terms of service and end user license agreement (EULA).

“The software that defendant uses to cheat infringes Epic’s copyrights in the game and breaches the terms of the agreements to which defendant agreed in order to have access to the game,” Epic wrote in its lawsuit. The studio claimed the cheaters’ actions are ruining the gamep experience for other players.

Echoing statements it made when announcing last week’s bans, Epic added that “Nobody likes a cheater. And nobody likes playing with cheaters. These axioms are particularly true in this case. Defendant uses cheats in a deliberate attempt to destroy the integrity of, and otherwise wreak havoc in, the Fortnite game.”

The suit also connects the defendants to cheat-providing website AddictedCheats.net. Vraspir is listed as support personnel for the site while Broom is said to be a moderator. Epic has been banned Broom once before, while it has banned Vraspir a whopping nine times.

Epic is seeking up to $150,000 in damages from each of the defendants, so it would seem there is some truth to Epic’s statement last week that fighting Fortnite cheaters was “the highest priority” for the entire studio.

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About the author

Nick Santangelo

Nick has been a gamer since the 8-bit days and has been reporting on the games industry since 2011. Don't interrupt him while he's questing through an RPG or desperately clinging to hope against all reason that his Philly sports teams will win something.

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