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Epic Games Paying $520 Million to Settle FTC Charges on Fortnite
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.”
FromSoftware title ‘Armored Core 6: Fires of Rubicon’, which is published by Bandai Namco, has laid claim to the top spot of the boxed charts in the United Kingdom this week following it’s August 25th release.
Armored Core 6’s debut pushed Mario Kart 8 Deluxe to the second overall spot in news that video game journalists have been covering extensively.
According to GamesIndustry.biz, Bandai Namco believes that ‘Armored Core 6: Fires of Rubicon’ is a “big step up in the franchise’ and communicated their hopes that it would surpass previous Armored Core games following the increased popularity in the game developers work on Elden Ring.
The United Kingdom charts also saw The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom move back to the 3rd spot, and FIFA 23 holding the 4th spot.
The biggest rise was from Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga, which jumped back in the top top from it’s previous 24th spot to land in 6th with a 146% increase in sales. That game, along with Hogwarts Legacy, is currently a part of a Playstation 5 bundle.
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt Game of the Year edition entered the Top Ten this week with an appearance in the 9th spot.
The news wasn’t so good for The Texas Chainsaw Massacre which saw a debut in the 13th spot last week but has now dropped to 37th following a 43% decrease in sales week-on-week, despite it’s initial push on every video game streaming platform following it’s heavily hyped arrival.
Here is a breakdown from the United Kingdom Boxed Top Ten for the week ending on August 26th, via GamesIndustry.biz.
| Last Week | This Week | Title |
|---|---|---|
| New Entry | 1 | Armored Core VI: Fires Of Rubicon |
| 1 | 2 | Mario Kart 8 Deluxe |
| 4 | 3 | The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom |
| 3 | 4 | FIFA 23 |
| 9 | 5 | Hogwarts Legacy |
| 24 | 6 | Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga |
| 5 | 7 | Mortal Kombat 11 Ultimate |
| 7 | 8 | Minecraft (Nintendo Switch) |
| 12 | 9 | The Witcher III: Wild Hunt GOTY Edition |
| 2 | 10 | Grand Theft Auto V |
Interactive drama developer and BAFTA-nominated studio Scriptic has raised a total $6.2 million in additional seed funding, including $500,000 from the Sony Innovation Fund, bringing the total seed investments to $8.7 million.
The funding will be deployed to continue going towards the expansion of its mobile narrative offerings, and the studio aims to provide its generative AI developer tools to more writers and storytellers.
“It’s a huge honor to have Sony Innovation Fund join our roster of stellar investors, and we’re thrilled that they share our vision for the future of interactive media and storytelling,” Scriptic CEO Nihal Tharoor said, according to GamesIndustry.biz.
This marks another example of studios who find Angel Investors and find VC investors to fund their initiatives, and those deals making waves in the gaming industry.
Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE) is set to officially acquire headphones manufacturer and audio technology company Audeze, officially entering a deal to purchase the company, according to GamesIndustry.biz.
SIE is aiming to expand the audio technology of Playstation games and with this deal, not only will Audeze help them in that mission but Audeze will continue to operate as a separate entity and develop its audio products, per a number of video game journalists covering the story.
“Audeze is a premier brand for headphones, and this acquisition highlights Sony Interactive’s focus on innovation and providing the best audio experience to PlayStation players,” SIE senior vice president of platform experience Hideaki Nishino said.
Stay tuned for more updates regarding this story.
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