In Septemer, Epic Games officially released the Battle Royale pvp mode to their popular title Fortnite. The new mode came with its share of glitches for a bit but unfortunately this wasn’t the only in-game issue. Epic Games noticed a number of people promoting the use of cheats for advantages in Battle Royale as well, and has openly stated that their top priority is to “work against both cheaters themselves and the cheat providers.” The company wants all players to have a fair chance in Battle Royale matches, and has since banned “thousands of players” who have been caught cheating after being warned.
Even though Epic Games made their stance on cheating clear, banning did not stop everyone from trying to work around the system. Two players from North Carolina, Brandon Boom and Charles Vraspir have been accused of continuing to promote cheating through Addictedcheats.net, even though Vraspir “has been banned from playing Fortnite at least nine times.” Documents also show Vraspir and Boom have contributed to the software used in creating Addictedcheats.net that “circumvents Epic’s technological measures and instructs subscribers to the cheat provider website to do the same.” These continued actions to go against Epic Games’ no cheating policy has prompted the company to take more severe measures; a lawsuit has been taken out against Boom and Vraspir for at least $150,000 per instance of copyright infringement.
In similar instance with Blizzard, a German programmer was sued for copyright infringement due to creating software that promoted cheating in Overwatch. Blizzard won the case and was awarded $8.6 million from “42,818 counts of copyright infringement.” If the court chooses to rule in a similar way, Epic Games could stand to win their case and discourage more cheaters from using prohibited software.
Fortnite’s Battle Royale pvp mode is currently available to play and download for free via Epic Games’ website.