Epic Games will pay $520 million to settle charges from the United States Federal Trade Commission, aka the FTC, over it’s popular title Fortnite, according to an official announcement issued by the FTC.
Per the announcement, Epic Games will pay $275 million for violating the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) and another $245 million for design relying on dark patterns “to dupe millions of players into making unintentional purchases”.
Some of the privacy violations included collecting personal information from children under 13 without parental consent or notification, as well as enabling voice and text chat for children and teens by default.
The FTC stated that employees at Epic Games had pushed for the company to make voice and text chat an opt-in feature as early as 2017, however Epic Games slowed on making changes despite reports of online harassment and sexual harassment towards children while playing Fortnite.
FTC also added that when Epic Games did add a button to turn off voice chat, they made it hard to find for users.
Additionally, the FTC (dark patterns complaint) referenced “counterintuitive, inconsistent, and confusing button configuration” and single-button purchases that meant users could accidentally buy something when trying to wake the game from sleep mode or while on a loading screen. Epic Games also put the button to preview an item in Fortnite adjacent to the purchase button, and Fortnite allowed children to purchase the V-Bucks virtual currency without parental consent or card holder action until 2018, and it locked the accounts of users who disputed unauthorized charges through their credit card companies. resulting in accidental purchases.
The FTC also determined that Epic Games ignored millions of user complaints about the wrongful charges and then used internal testing that made the cancel and refund features far more difficult for users to locate.
Epic Games said it would be “moving beyond long-standing industry practices.”
“No developer creates a game with the intention of ending up here,” the company said in an official statement. “The video game industry is a place of fast-moving innovation, where player expectations are high and new ideas are paramount. Statutes written decades ago don’t specify how gaming ecosystems should operate. The laws have not changed, but their application has evolved and long-standing industry practices are no longer enough. We accepted this agreement because we want Epic to be at the forefront of consumer protection and provide the best experience for our players.
“Over the past few years, we’ve been making changes to ensure our ecosystem meets the expectations of our players and regulators, which we hope will be a helpful guide for others in our industry.”
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