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In its complaint, the FTC said parents who wanted Epic to delete personal information on their kids had to "jump through extraordinary hoops" and even then the company sometimes didn't honor those requests. The FTC claimed that Epic violated the COPPA rule by collecting personal data from Fortnite players aged under 13 without notifying or seeking consent from their parents. The game generated $9 billion in profit between 20, and $5.1 billion in gross revenue in 2020. Along with Lego, whose parent company invested $1 billion, Epic is working on building a kid-friendly metaverse.Fortnite has been a colossal success for Epic. In the last two years, Epic has raised more than $3 billion in venture capital, most recently at a $31.5 billion valuation. Right now, this feature is available for “Fortnite,” “Fall Guys” and “Rocket League.” When a child signs up, their parent will be notified via email and can then adjust their child’s settings if they choose. If a player registers with a birth date that places them below their country’s age of digital consent (13 in the U.S.), then features like chat and purchasing are disabled. In Epic’s response to the FTC fine, the company pointed to a new feature it rolled out earlier this month called Cabined Accounts. According to the FTC’s press release, children have been exposed to bullying, threats, harassment and “psychologically traumatizing issues such as suicide” while playing the game. The FTC claims that children were exposed to harassment and abuse because of these features, especially since Epic had no way of making sure that children and adults would not be matched together in online play. In addition to making it too easy for children to make online purchases, the FTC also took issue with Epic’s live text and voice communication features, which were set to be turned on by default. “We accepted this agreement because we want Epic to be at the forefront of consumer protection and provide the best experience for our players.”Įpic said that it has updated its payment flows to offer a yes or no option to save payment info, as well as instant purchase cancellations and self-service refunds. The laws have not changed, but their application has evolved and long-standing industry practices are no longer enough,” Epic wrote in a statement. “Statutes written decades ago don’t specify how gaming ecosystems should operate. The FTC also fined Epic $245 million to refund customers for what it calls “dark patterns and billing practices.” Epic says it will pay both of these fines, the latter of which will be the FTC’s largest-ever refund amount in a gaming case. The $520 million payment is divided into two settlements: The COPPA fine amounts to $275 million, which is the largest-ever penalty for violating an FTC rule. Epic Games, which makes popular all-ages games like “Fortnite” and “Fall Guys,” allegedly violated the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) by deploying “design tricks, known as dark patterns, to dupe millions of players into making unintentional purchases,” the FTC said in a press release. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced Monday morning it will charge Epic Games with a $520 million settlement over charges related to children’s privacy.