Epic Games sue tester for “spoiling” Fortnite: Chapter 2
Though it seems no one believed his leaks
Epic Games, developers of that little game that you might have heard of called Fortnite, are suing a UX tester for leaking details about their big shift into Chapter 2. They say that Ronald Sykes caused them harm by Tweeting things he shouldn’t have about season 11, which eventually arrived after their big black hole event a couple of weeks ago.
As reported by Nicole Carpenter at Polygon, Epic say that Sykes “spoiled the suspense,” of Fortnite Chapter 2. Sykes had signed an NDA as part of his work as a tester, but he allegedly broke it and shared information on Twitter, including the new map and new features like swimming.
However, as Tom Phillips recently wrote at Eurogamer, though the leaks turned out to be true, no one actually believed that at the time.
Was it real? The internet quickly decided no. Fan-made map concepts are posted on Reddit all the time, and the idea Fortnite was suddenly going to switch to an all-new island was still far from certain. Despite being reposted a couple more times…the image failed to gain much traction. Each time it was posted, it was downvoted into oblivion.
Epic have screenshotted some of the Tweets and included them in the full filing, demonstrating that none of them have much engagement. And despite saying that Sykes’ “spoilers” may have led to less interest and “potentially led [players] to move to other games,” they also write that “The End,” or the event that replaced Fortnite with a black hole for 40-ish hours, “broke viewership records on both Twitter and Twitch,” suggesting that people were still plenty excited enough to stare at nothing while they waited to find out what happened. This is also despite other leaks that were better received, including the Italian App store accidentally showing it off prematurely.
Still, Epic are claiming that they “have been, and will continue to be harmed,” and are therefore entitled to compensation and legal fees. They’re asking for the maximum possible damages to be awarded to them.
This isn’t the first time that Epic have sued an alleged leaker. In June they claimed that they’d suffered “irreparable injury” when a QA tester hinted that the meteor hanging over the island would destroy Dusty Depot. They’ve also filed, and then settled, multiple suits against cheaters.