‘Fortnite: Battle Royale’ Cheat Makers Sued By Epic Games
Epic Games has taken a strong stance against cheaters in Fortnite: Battle Royale, particularly on the PC. That includes in-game anti-cheat detection, including the just-added BattlEye, a Report Player button, plus blocking the use of virtual private networks (VPN). The developer has also taken another step outside of the game by suing the makers of cheating software for $150,000.
The Fortnite developer has filed a lawsuits in North Carolina federal court against Charles Vraspir and Brandon Broom, according to documents obtained by TorrentFreak. Epic Games is based in the state while both defendants are associated with a website called Addicted Cheats, which sells cheats and hacks to registered members.
Both Vraspir and Broom have been sued separately in near identical complaints filed on October 10, 2017. They are accused of creating cheat software that “infringes on Epic Games’ copyrights in the game and breaches the terms of the agreements” that all players must accept when creating an account to play Fortnite: Battle Royale.
The two defendants came to Epic Games attention due to them allegedly hunting down streamers on Twitch and using the cheat software against them.
“He publicly celebrates in the cheat provider’s discussion channel when he successfully stream snipes, i.e., killing streamers as they stream, by posting comments like ‘Yes I got them!’ and ‘LOL I f**ked them,'” the complaint against Vraspir states.
Meanwhile, the complaint against Broom alleges he specifically modified cheat software in response to Epic Games’ attempt to stop known cheating methods. The defendant then allegedly bragged in the Addicted Cheats forums about successfully circumventing Epic’s efforts.
Both defendants have been banned from Fortnite: Battle Royale and all Epic Games titles as a result. The free-to-play nature of the game, combined with the ease of creating new Epic accounts via a VPN, resulted in cheaters creating new accounts until the developer clamped down.
Epic Games is asking for $150,000 in statutory damages for copyright infringement along with breach of contract and circumvention of technological measures. The studio appears to be dropping the hammer hard on the two defendants as a warning shot against other potential cheaters. It has already worked to a degree as Addicted Cheats has discontinued offering Fortnite cheats and closed the associated forums.
Fortnite: Battle Royale has experienced explosive growth on the PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC since it was made free to play a little more than two weeks ago. It has reached the 10 million player milestone with 500,000 concurrent players over the past weekend.
[Featured Image by Epic Games]
