Epic Games has settled a 2017 lawsuit against a 14-year-old Fortnite player who allegedly made YouTube videos of himself using cheating software.
As noted by PC Gamer, the court documents don’t contain the details of the settlement. Epic first sued the 14-year-old in 2017, claiming he had downloaded and used cheating software and showed other players how to use it in his YouTube videos. Epic also claimed the player had violated Epic’s copyright by using the cheat to modify the game’s code, and that he had created a secondary YouTube channel to circumvent a DMCA of his video on YouTube. “Defendant is a cheater,” Epic wrote in its initial complaint, adding harshly, “Nobody likes a cheater. And nobody likes playing with cheaters.”
In response to the initial suit, the minor’s mother wrote an impassioned letter to the courts, contesting Epic’s claims and saying the company was “using a 14 year-old child as a scapegoat.”
While it was wild for Epic to go after a minor in 2017, suing individual cheaters feels a bit quaint now bearing in mind how much Fortnite cheating has exploded since. The 2019 Fortnite World Cup was rife with cheating scandals in the qualifiers. Most notably, World Cup competitor XXiF received a temporary suspension for teaming during qualifiers, and fans cheered his elimination during the World Cup match. Epic has tried to revamp its competitive rules, but casual and professional players have continued finding ways to cheat in matches, in particular 2020’s FNCS.
Many other game companies have also been going after cheaters lately. Last month, Riot and Bungie filed a joint suit against cheat sellers, which is at least going after the source of the problem, rather than the kids who use them.