Epic Games to Pay $520 Million for Using Deceptive Patterns on Children

Fortnite maker, Epic Games, has on Monday reached a settlement in court in an investigation by the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC), to pay a total of 520 million US Dollars in fines. This fine is because Epic deployed shady tactics of manipulating children into purchasing Fortnite V-bucks, skins, etc., without proper consent forms and purchase order confirmations. Even with millions of complaints from parents, Epic decided to proceed with its tactics and used dark patterns that deceived the original intent. Thus, the FTC has made a case that this violates the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) rule, and Epic Games will have to pay the fine.

The fine is consists of two separate causes. The $275 million monetary penalty for violating the COPPA Rule—the largest penalty ever obtained for violating an FTC rule, and the $245 million to refund consumers for its dark patterns and billing practices. The refund fine is FTC’s most considerable refund amount in a gaming case and its most significant administrative order in history. Epic said, “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. ” The official statement is far longer, and you can read about it here.