The company will pay $275 million to settle accusations that it violated the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act when it collected personal information from Fortnite players under the age of 13 that didn’t have verifiable consent from a parent or guardian. What is Epic accused of? The $520 million actually comes from two separate cases. The companies settled out of court.Video game developer Epic Games has agreed to a $520 million settlement to resolve Federal Trade Commission (FTC) accusations that its online shooter Fortnite violated privacy protections for children and used manipulative market practices to trick gamers into making unwanted purchases. In 1974, console manufacturer Magnavox sued Atari, arguing that the classic arcade game Pong infringed on its own patents and concepts.

There have been many attempts in the past to prove copyright violation in the games industry. “Traditionally the protection of gameplay where it does not directly copy is not an action that succeeds, and rightly so.” “With Fortnite, the style of the game does appear different to PUBG and given their close release dates it would seem less likely that copying took place In their statement they say they are concerned that Fortnite is ‘replicating the experience’, which seems the sort of unreferenced statement that suggests that they are trying to protect the general gameplay. Without examining the court documents it is impossible to say, but it doesn’t appear that Bluehole is saying Epic has copied the source code for PUBG to produce Fortnite.

“Games are a bundle of intellectual property rights, but in this case what’s most relevant is that copyright subsists in the source code and in the representation of the game on screen. Epic Games has not yet commented on the lawsuit. “In England there would only copyright infringement if it was shown that Epic copied a substantial part of PUBG,” said Alex Tutty of Sheridans law firm, which specialises in video game industry disputes. PUGB and Epic Games also share an investor – the Chinese tech company Tencent, which has a stake in both and last month contributed $15m toward bringing Fortnite e-sports to China.Ĭopyright infringement is often difficult to prove in the video games industry, where competing publishers and developers often produce very similar titles in established genres. PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds was created using a games engine named Unreal Engine 4, which is developed and licensed by Epic Games. Fortnite is now the most popular game on streaming platform Twitch, while Battlegrounds has dropped to 10th place. Over this time, the popularity of PlayerUnknown’s Battleground has fallen. Epic Games made almost $300m (£226m) from such purchases in April, according to market analysis firm SuperData. The game is free to download on consoles, PC and mobile, but participants pay for cosmetic items such as costumes and backpacks. Since its launch in September, Fortnite has become one of the most successful games in the world, attracting over 40m players. PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds aka ‘PUBG’ beat Fortnite to market but it has a much more naturalistic militarised look Photograph: PR Company Handout

Fortnite epic games lawsuit