The U.S. Federal Trade Commission began sending payments to players of Fortnite who were deceived into making unwanted in-game purchases.
The payments will total $72 million and come after the FTC and Epic Games, Fortnite’s studio, settled for $245 million over a “counterintuitive” design issue causing players to click the wrong button and inadvertently make a purchase.
The FTC has recently targeted companies, including Amazon, over these sorts of deceptive practices — known as dark patterns.
The agency determined Fortnite would make purchases while a player was previewing an item or when the game was still loading, this caused some players — many of whom are children — to “rack up unauthorized charges without any parental involvement,” the FTC said.
More than 629,000 customers will receive an average payment of $114 in this round of payments with future disbursements coming at a later date.
“As our complaints note, Epic used privacy-invasive default settings and deceptive interfaces that tricked Fortnite users, including teenagers and children,” FTC Chair Lina M. Khan said when the settlement was first announced in December 2022. “Protecting the public, and especially children, from online privacy invasions and dark patterns is a top priority for the Commission, and these enforcement actions make clear to businesses that the FTC is cracking down on these unlawful practices.”
Epic Games was fined an additional $275 million for violating Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act in the case.
