Epic Games is pretty ticked off about all the cheaters running amuck in their shooter, Fortnite. They've reached the point where they've begun taking people to court for cheating and it doesn't matter who you are as they've even unknowingly pursued legal action against a 14-year old kid.
The mother of said 14-year old responded with a letter of anger as Epic Games revealed the name of the kid to the public (which is illegal since he's a minor) and she didn't give her child consent to play the game. Since then, Epic Games has settled with one of the cheaters, Charles Vraspir. Epic suspected that Vraspir wrote his own code for cheating and registered 9 different accounts, each of which were banned. “Defendant’s cheating, and his inducing and enabling of others to cheat, is ruining the game playing experience of players who do not cheat,” Epic Games wrote.
Both parties came to an agreement which prohibits Vraspir from creating, writing, developing, promoting, or distributing anything that infringes any of Epic's copyrights. If Vraspir breaks this agreement, he will have to pay $5,000 to Epic Games. No settlement fee was reported.
Epic responded to the mother by saying that she exposed her son in her own letter by not redacting his name.
“Although there is an argument that by submitting the Letter to the Court containing Defendant’s name and address, Defendant’s mother waived this protection […] we plan to include only Defendant’s initials or redact his name entirely in all future filings with the Court, including this letter.”
After seeing Epic settle with Charles Vraspir, it's likely something similar will happen in the case of the kid unless the mother insists that Epic is in the wrong and her son is not. It would seem that Vraspir was far more guilty as he was writing his own code but the kid did violate the EULA for Fortnite as well. We'll continue to keep you updated as this story develops.
