Fortnite players and other Epic Games customers tricked by the game maker into making unwanted purchases are set to receive refund payments from the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).
As part of a settlement first announced in December 2022, the video game maker has been ordered by the FTC to pay $245 million to resolve allegations that it used unlawful billing practices involving design tricks known as dark patterns to get players to unintentionally rack up charges. It is the largest ever refund amount in a gaming case, the agency said.
The FTC says it is sending more than 629,000 payments Monday, with more disbursements to come at a later date. About half of the first tranche of payments will be made through PayPal, and the other half will be checks. Collectively, customers will receive $72 million in refunds, according to the agency.
How much money will each customer get?
The average payment is around $114, the FTC said. Epic Games customers who are entitled to refunds selected their payment method when they submitted a claim form. Customers who chose to receive PayPal payments have 30 days to redeem the funds, while check recipients have 90 days to cash them.
What did Epic Games do?
The FTC alleges the Fortnite-maker used dark patterns along with a variety of other tactics to trick customers into making unwanted purchases.
For example, a “counterintuitive, inconsistent, and confusing button configuration” led Fortnite players to easily incur unwanted charges with the press of a single button, according to the FTC. Additionally, trying to transition the game from sleep to wake mode often triggered unwanted purchases. Other times, pressing an “adjacent button” while trying to preview an item led to a charge.
“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 in December 2022, when the settlement was first announced. “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.”