Fortnite
On Tuesday, Fortnite publisher Epic Games filed civil complaints against two alleged associates of the website Addicted Cheats who apparently used the site’s aimbotting services to kill Twitch streamers live on camera.
For $US5 to $US15 monthly subscriptions, Addicted Cheats’ botting services aid players in tracking, aiming at and killing enemies in PvP games. To architect cheats for Fortnite‘s new battle royale mode, which now boasts over ten million players, the cheat-makers would have to reverse-engineer and modify the game’s source code.
In a civil complaint, Epic Games argues that making and using that altered, game-breaking code is against Fortnite‘s End User Licence Agreement and the Copyright Act.
“In using cheat software to modify the game’s code in this way,” the complaints read, “Defendant and other cheaters who use the cheat create unauthorised derivative works based on Fortnite in violation of the Copyright Act.”
Credit: Addicted Cheats
According to the complaints, both defendants seem to offer technical support for AddictedCheats.com and, with cheats the site provides, monitor streams and intentionally prevent streamers from winning.
This practice, which is known as “stream sniping,” has been a semi-frequent and much-derided fad among the PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds community — a game that Fortnite‘s new battle royale mode expressly took some cues from.
While Battlegrounds explicitly forbids cheating and stream-sniping in its rules of conduct, Fortnite‘s only explicitly forbids cheating. One defendant had been banned from playing Fortnite nine times. In response, he allegedly registered several other accounts with different names to continue playing Fortnite and stream-sniping.
According to the complaint, when asked why he stream-snipes, the defendant said, “Because its [sic] fun to rage and see streamers cry about how loaded they are and then get them stomped anyways.”
Fortnite
When Epic Games altered Fortnite‘s code to prevent further cheating, the second defendant allegedly found a work-around with, adding, “Now method is exposed . . . Epic Eat my arse.” Over Discord chat, both defendants declined to comment. Over Addicted Cheats’ Discord channel, an affiliate said that they’re not offering refunds to Fortnite cheaters who purchased their services.
When reached for comment, Epic games said, “When cheaters use aimbots or other cheat technologies to gain an unfair advantage, they ruin games for people who are playing fairly. We take cheating seriously, and we’ll pursue all available options to make sure our games are fun, fair, and competitive for players.”
In putting out a battle royale game reminiscent of PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, publisher Epic Games seemed to have attracted one aspect of the Battlegrounds community it probably didn’t want.
Comments
6 responses to “Epic Is Suing Two Alleged Fortnite Cheaters”
Charming people. Sounds like they are envious of the streamers and want to ‘ruin their fun’. Standard bullying behaviour.
The whole ‘snowflake’ and ‘safe space’ thing is coming to online games now?
Cheating in online pvp games has been around for over two decades, suddenly it’s a problem people/companies want to sue over…
The only argument Epic have is that Addicted Cheats are profiting from selling the cheat subscription, as 99.9% of cheat programs in the old days were standalone and free, but this is not part of their complaint for some reason. The whole of Epic’s submitted argument is millennial mentality foot-stamping whinge. Epic Games would have the world become China? where people are hauled away over the most minor of things?
As for stream sniping, no game developer or service can ever prohibit it. If you stream any game, you are at risk of being sniped, if the game structure makes it possible. I don’t understand why organizations try to draw up wet-paper rules to fight from an unwinnable situation, when they created the possiblity for the problem in the first place. Seems to be a crying victim of ‘real world syndrome’.
No actually, Epic Games has the full force of the law backing them. Its also called a “Terms of Agreement” which is a contract of sorts.
These cheaters also grabbed code out of the game and changed it to get around the Anti Cheat programs which is also against the law.
These cheaters should be sued. Its he only way to start making these cheaters piss off.
They ruin the experience for everyone else period. They are literally losers with a passion for ruining another persons fun. These people are the lowest of the lowest in the gaming community and deserve the face the crimes they commited. Also I need to let you know majority of cheaters know they are risking their privliges.
Also the only people who defend cheaters are cheaters themselves.
I disagree with you completely. Epic has a responsibility to ensure its players get a fair and consistent gaming experience as best as possible. People who facilitate software to help cheat in multiplayer games are scum, they’re violating the terms of the agreement and they absolutely should be dealt with legally. It’s not ‘suddenly a problem’, it’s been a problem for decades, and one that plenty of companies have taken people to court over. Epic is far from the first and certainly won’t be the last.
If there’s any foot stamping whinging here, it would surely be your bizarre defence of people who are deliberately trying to ruin the game for everyone else.
nailed it. well said.
Agreed. People who behave like assholes and ruin others experiences online by cheating or facilitating cheating, deserve to be pummelled.
Maybe you should read the rules, the agreement dont allow it, its very clear and simple actually no brainer, maybe these kids lack even the basic skills but nobody cares they maybe have no friends or accomplishments, that’s not our problem, they are just an annoyance and nobody wants them near.