Fortnite developers impose $5000 injunction on ‘cheater’

Epic Games, the creators of free-to-play zombie craft-em-up Fortnite, have settled a legal case against an alleged cheater. It’s one of the two cases we’ve previously mentioned, and involves a player who was accused of tinkering with the game to “see through solid objects, teleport, impersonate another player” and “ruining the game playing experience of others”. The case has been settled with an injunction that will cost the player $5000 if breached.

The injunction was picked up by TorrentFreak and can be seen here. Basically, it orders that the player delete all the hacks in his possession and explicitly prohibits him from “creating, writing, developing, advertising, promoting, and/or distributing anything that infringes Epic's works”. The full list of conditions is longer and, as you’d expect, thorough. But considering that the alternative was a lengthy legal battle, possibly ending in a $150,000 fine for the player, it was agreed last week to settle on the permanent injunction.

In strict legal terms, the player was accused of copyright infringement and breach of the end user license agreement. But he was also accused of working for a website which sold the cheats to others, as well as specifically targeting Twitch streamers to gain more publicity. He kept this up, they claim, despite being banned nine times.

I was not keen on the game when I wrote my Fortnite review and found it a dumping ground for all the worst free-to-play practices. Matt didn’t really enjoy its battle royale mode either. So I'm not sure what the moral lesson is here. Don't cheat? But also, don't play Fortnite? Sounds like a good compromise to me.