Following allegations by federal regulators that Epic Games, the company behind the well-known game, deceived users into making unnecessary payments, more than 600,000 Fortnite players will begin to receive refunds.
More than $72 million will be sent to affected players in the United States, the Federal Trade Commission said Monday, with more refunds to follow. The agency estimates that each athlete receives an average salary of $114.
The announcement follows two years after the FTC ordered Epic Games, a company located in North Carolina, to pay $520 million to resolve claims that it had acquired children’s personal information without first getting parental or guardian approval.
Although Epic promised to update its chat and text features, privacy regulations, and how it charges game players as part of the settlement, it did not confirm or refute the accusations.
A request for comment on Tuesday was not immediately answered by a developer spokeswoman.
In a statement released on Monday, the FTC said that players of all ages were subjected to unwarranted charges simply by pressing a single button because of Fortnite’s counterintuitive, inconsistent, and confusing button layout. Players might be charged, for instance, when trying to wake the game from sleep mode, while it was loading, or by clicking a nearby button while just trying to preview an item.
In the battle royale game Fortnite, which debuted in 2017, users can compete as a team or alone, trying to eliminate each other until they are the last squad or individual remaining. Player statistics are not made available to the public by Epic Games. However, according to the game analytics website Active Player, there are approximately 30 million gamers who play every day.
According to the FTC, qualified customers have until January 10 to file an online claim.
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