‘Fortnite’ players are due a refund of $72million for buying unwanted skins
Fortnite players are owed a refund for buying unwanted ingame skins, according to a ruling from the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC).The FTC is due to refund up to $72million (£56.6million) in the coming months after it found Fortnite guilty of using “dark patterns” to trick players into making unwanted purchases and let children buy virtual items for real-world money without parental authorisation.“Fortnite’s counterintuitive, inconsistent, and confusing button configuration led players to incur unwanted charges based on the press of a single button,” reads a new statement from the FTC (via VGC), who first raised the issue in 2022. “For example, players could be charged while attempting to wake the game from sleep mode, while the game was in a loading screen, or by pressing an adjacent button while attempting simply to preview an item.”The FTC is sending refunds totaling more than $72M to consumers who were tricked by Epic Games, maker of the popular video game Fortnite, into making unwanted purchases: https://t.co/Fmyj2r6PeI /1— FTC (@FTC) December 9, 2024According to the FTC’s complaint, Fortnite also locked the accounts of customers who disputed unauthorised charges with their credit card companies, which has been ruled “unlawful”.