Fortnite has taken the world by storm ever since it released over the summer and especially after it released its Battle Royale mode, a clone of the popular PC game PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds which itself is a clone of a clone. The Battle Royale mode in Fortnite puts 100 players into a large map and leaves them to fight to the death with whatever they can find. Players can also build defenses and other objects to help them survive.
Of course, as with any game, some people have found ways to exploit the game to their advantage and Epic Games isn't particularly fond of that. Instead of just banning some people, Epic has taken it all the way to court because it violates their EULA. Turns out, one of the people Epic is taking to court is a 14-year old kid and his mom is pretty unhappy. She has publicly spoken out against Epic's handling of the case which you can find below, courtesy of Kotaku. You can also click here to view her whole letter.
- She says that Fortnite’s terms require parental consent for minors, and that she never gave this consent.
- She says the case is based on a loss of profits, but argues that it’s a free-to-play video game, and that in order to prove a loss Epic would need to provide a statement certifying that Rogers’ cheating directly caused a “mass profit loss”.
- She claims that by going after individual players, rather than the websites selling/providing the software necessary to cheat in an online game, Epic is “using a 14 year-old child as a scapegoat”.
- She claims that her son did not, as Epic allege, help create the cheat software, but simply downloaded it as a user, and that Epic “has no capability of proving any form of modification”.
- Finally, the mother says that by releasing her son’s name publicly in conjunction with the move that Epic has violated Delaware laws related to the release of information on minors.
Of course, you can't really sue a minor so it's assumed that maybe Epic didn't actually know that the kid was a minor but in a statement to Kotaku, the developer seems pretty determined to take this kid and his family to court… yikes.
“This particular lawsuit arose as a result of the defendant filing a DMCA counterclaim to a takedown notice on a YouTube video that exposed and promoted Fortnite Battle Royale cheats and exploits”, Epic says in a statement given to Kotaku. “Under these circumstances, the law requires that we file suit or drop the claim.
“Epic is not okay with ongoing cheating or copyright infringement from anyone at any age. As stated previously, we take cheating seriously, and we’ll pursue all available options to make sure our games are fun, fair, and competitive for players.”
