{"id":105389,"date":"2024-12-11T19:11:42","date_gmt":"2024-12-11T19:11:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thegeek.games\/?p=105389"},"modified":"2024-12-11T19:11:42","modified_gmt":"2024-12-11T19:11:42","slug":"fortnite-us-players-receive-refunds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thegeek.games\/2024\/12\/11\/fortnite-us-players-receive-refunds\/","title":{"rendered":"Fortnite: US Players Receive Refunds!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Now that the Fortnite case is over, the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has begun refunding some money to affected players.<\/h4>\n

 <\/p>\n

Gamesindustry has reported that the FTC will initially refund 629344 players who unknowingly purchased perks, emotes, and other in-game items in Epic Games’ hit battle royale game. Half of them will receive money via PayPal and half will receive a check from the FTC. The rest will be paid at a later date. The average payout will be $114 per player.<\/p>\n

Epic Games and the FTC reached this agreement two years ago, in December 2022. At the time, the company was fined by the commission for using dark pattern tactics to induce players to buy virtual currency against their will. The company was fined $245 million, all of which the FTC will use for restitution. This is the amount from which the Commission has begun to make restitution.<\/p>\n

But this isn’t the first time the FTC has fined Epic Games, as the company known for Fortnite and Unreal Engine was fined under COPPA (Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act) for collecting data from children under 13 playing the popular battle royale game without verifiable parental consent, and for forcing parents to jump through hoops to delete their children’s data. This violation cost Epic Games $275 million, bringing the total fine to $520 million.<\/p>\n

So Epic Games was really screwed, because it’s true that Sweeney’s company wants to build a metaverse (Lego Fortnite is proof of that, or the fact that Fortnite got a Counter-Strike-like game mode, the latter of which we’ve already reported on in the news), but it shouldn’t be done by tricking the public into paying for it.<\/p>\n

Now the only question is: how will Epic Games learn its lesson from all of this?<\/p>\n

Source: Gamesindustry<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Now that the Fortnite case is over, the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has begun refunding some money to affected players.   Gamesindustry has reported that the FTC will initially refund 629344 players who unknowingly purchased perks, emotes, and other in-game items in Epic Games’ hit battle royale game. Half of them will receive money via PayPal and half will receive a check from the FTC. The rest will be paid at a later date. The average payout will be $114 per player. Epic Games and the FTC reached this agreement two years ago, in December 2022. At the time, the company was fined by the commission for using dark pattern tactics to induce players to buy virtual currency against their will. The company was…<\/p>\n

Read more…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":30734,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,1,8975,8976,8965,8966,8971,8972],"tags":[6702],"class_list":["post-105389","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-hot-news","category-news","category-pc","category-pc-news","category-playstation","category-playstation-news","category-xbox","category-xbox-news","tag-fortnite"],"yoast_head":"\nFortnite: US Players Receive Refunds!<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Now that the Fortnite case is over, the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has begun refunding some money to affected players.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/thegeek.games\/2024\/12\/11\/fortnite-us-players-receive-refunds\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Fortnite: US Players Receive Refunds!\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Now that the Fortnite case is over, the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has begun refunding some money to affected players.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/thegeek.games\/2024\/12\/11\/fortnite-us-players-receive-refunds\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"theGeek.games\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/theGeek2019\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:author\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/aniko.angyal.54\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2024-12-11T19:11:42+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/thegeek.games\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/ps4pro-Fortnite.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"664\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"374\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Angyal Anik\u00f3\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@theGeek2019\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@theGeek2019\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Angyal Anik\u00f3\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/thegeek.games\/2024\/12\/11\/fortnite-us-players-receive-refunds\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/thegeek.games\/2024\/12\/11\/fortnite-us-players-receive-refunds\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Angyal Anik\u00f3\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/thegeek.games\/#\/schema\/person\/63ce33ed5b52a1f8ce39db09ffc8f728\"},\"headline\":\"Fortnite: US Players Receive Refunds!\",\"datePublished\":\"2024-12-11T19:11:42+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2024-12-11T19:11:42+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/thegeek.games\/2024\/12\/11\/fortnite-us-players-receive-refunds\/\"},\"wordCount\":304,\"commentCount\":0,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/thegeek.games\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/thegeek.games\/2024\/12\/11\/fortnite-us-players-receive-refunds\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/thegeek.games\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/ps4pro-Fortnite.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Fortnite\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Hot news\",\"News\",\"PC\",\"PC News\",\"PlayStation\",\"PlayStation News\",\"Xbox\",\"Xbox News\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/thegeek.games\/2024\/12\/11\/fortnite-us-players-receive-refunds\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/thegeek.games\/2024\/12\/11\/fortnite-us-players-receive-refunds\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/thegeek.games\/2024\/12\/11\/fortnite-us-players-receive-refunds\/\",\"name\":\"Fortnite: US Players Receive Refunds!\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/thegeek.games\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/thegeek.games\/2024\/12\/11\/fortnite-us-players-receive-refunds\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/thegeek.games\/2024\/12\/11\/fortnite-us-players-receive-refunds\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/thegeek.games\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/ps4pro-Fortnite.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2024-12-11T19:11:42+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2024-12-11T19:11:42+00:00\",\"description\":\"Now that the Fortnite case is over, the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has begun refunding some money to affected players.\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/thegeek.games\/2024\/12\/11\/fortnite-us-players-receive-refunds\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/thegeek.games\/2024\/12\/11\/fortnite-us-players-receive-refunds\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/thegeek.games\/2024\/12\/11\/fortnite-us-players-receive-refunds\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/thegeek.games\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/ps4pro-Fortnite.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/thegeek.games\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/ps4pro-Fortnite.jpg\",\"width\":\"664\",\"height\":\"374\",\"caption\":\"Despite attempts to adapt Fortnite to Beijing's regulations, Epic Games are giving up on the market\"},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/thegeek.games\/2024\/12\/11\/fortnite-us-players-receive-refunds\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/thegeek.games\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Fortnite: US Players Receive Refunds!\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/thegeek.games\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/thegeek.games\/\",\"name\":\"theGeek.games\",\"description\":\"theGeek is an online magazine about video games and movies news, reviews and more.\",\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/thegeek.games\/#organization\"},\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/thegeek.games\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Organization\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/thegeek.games\/#organization\",\"name\":\"theGeek.games\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/thegeek.games\/\",\"logo\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/thegeek.games\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/thegeek.games\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/theGeek-2.png\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/thegeek.games\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/theGeek-2.png\",\"width\":960,\"height\":960,\"caption\":\"theGeek.games\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/thegeek.games\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\"},\"sameAs\":[\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/theGeek2019\/\",\"https:\/\/x.com\/theGeek2019\",\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/company\/38149867\/\"]},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/thegeek.games\/#\/schema\/person\/63ce33ed5b52a1f8ce39db09ffc8f728\",\"name\":\"Angyal Anik\u00f3\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/thegeek.games\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/thegeek.games\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/Aniko-2-96x96.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/thegeek.games\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/Aniko-2-96x96.jpg\",\"caption\":\"Angyal Anik\u00f3\"},\"description\":\"Anik\u00f3, our news editor and communication manager, is more interested in the business side of the gaming industry. She worked at banks, and she has a vast knowledge of business life. Still, she likes puzzle and story-oriented games, like Sherlock Holmes: Crimes & Punishments, which is her favourite title. She also played The Sims 3, but after accidentally killing a whole sim family, swore not to play it again. (For our office address, email and phone number check out our IMPRESSUM)\",\"sameAs\":[\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/aniko.angyal.54\"],\"url\":\"https:\/\/thegeek.games\/author\/aniko\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Fortnite: US Players Receive Refunds!","description":"Now that the Fortnite case is over, the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has begun refunding some money to affected players.","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/thegeek.games\/2024\/12\/11\/fortnite-us-players-receive-refunds\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Fortnite: US Players Receive Refunds!","og_description":"Now that the Fortnite case is over, the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has begun refunding some money to affected players.","og_url":"https:\/\/thegeek.games\/2024\/12\/11\/fortnite-us-players-receive-refunds\/","og_site_name":"theGeek.games","article_publisher":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/theGeek2019\/","article_author":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/aniko.angyal.54","article_published_time":"2024-12-11T19:11:42+00:00","og_image":[{"width":664,"height":374,"url":"https:\/\/thegeek.games\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/ps4pro-Fortnite.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Angyal Anik\u00f3","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@theGeek2019","twitter_site":"@theGeek2019","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Angyal Anik\u00f3","Est. reading time":"2 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/thegeek.games\/2024\/12\/11\/fortnite-us-players-receive-refunds\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/thegeek.games\/2024\/12\/11\/fortnite-us-players-receive-refunds\/"},"author":{"name":"Angyal Anik\u00f3","@id":"https:\/\/thegeek.games\/#\/schema\/person\/63ce33ed5b52a1f8ce39db09ffc8f728"},"headline":"Fortnite: US Players Receive Refunds!","datePublished":"2024-12-11T19:11:42+00:00","dateModified":"2024-12-11T19:11:42+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/thegeek.games\/2024\/12\/11\/fortnite-us-players-receive-refunds\/"},"wordCount":304,"commentCount":0,"publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/thegeek.games\/#organization"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/thegeek.games\/2024\/12\/11\/fortnite-us-players-receive-refunds\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/thegeek.games\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/ps4pro-Fortnite.jpg","keywords":["Fortnite"],"articleSection":["Hot news","News","PC","PC News","PlayStation","PlayStation News","Xbox","Xbox News"],"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"CommentAction","name":"Comment","target":["https:\/\/thegeek.games\/2024\/12\/11\/fortnite-us-players-receive-refunds\/#respond"]}]},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/thegeek.games\/2024\/12\/11\/fortnite-us-players-receive-refunds\/","url":"https:\/\/thegeek.games\/2024\/12\/11\/fortnite-us-players-receive-refunds\/","name":"Fortnite: US Players Receive Refunds!","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/thegeek.games\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/thegeek.games\/2024\/12\/11\/fortnite-us-players-receive-refunds\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/thegeek.games\/2024\/12\/11\/fortnite-us-players-receive-refunds\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/thegeek.games\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/ps4pro-Fortnite.jpg","datePublished":"2024-12-11T19:11:42+00:00","dateModified":"2024-12-11T19:11:42+00:00","description":"Now that the Fortnite case is over, the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has begun refunding some money to affected players.","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/thegeek.games\/2024\/12\/11\/fortnite-us-players-receive-refunds\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/thegeek.games\/2024\/12\/11\/fortnite-us-players-receive-refunds\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/thegeek.games\/2024\/12\/11\/fortnite-us-players-receive-refunds\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/thegeek.games\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/ps4pro-Fortnite.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/thegeek.games\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/ps4pro-Fortnite.jpg","width":"664","height":"374","caption":"Despite attempts to adapt Fortnite to Beijing's regulations, Epic Games are giving up on the market"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/thegeek.games\/2024\/12\/11\/fortnite-us-players-receive-refunds\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/thegeek.games\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Fortnite: US Players Receive Refunds!"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/thegeek.games\/#website","url":"https:\/\/thegeek.games\/","name":"theGeek.games","description":"theGeek is an online magazine about video games and movies news, reviews and more.","publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/thegeek.games\/#organization"},"potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/thegeek.games\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https:\/\/thegeek.games\/#organization","name":"theGeek.games","url":"https:\/\/thegeek.games\/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/thegeek.games\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/thegeek.games\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/theGeek-2.png","contentUrl":"https:\/\/thegeek.games\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/theGeek-2.png","width":960,"height":960,"caption":"theGeek.games"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/thegeek.games\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/"},"sameAs":["https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/theGeek2019\/","https:\/\/x.com\/theGeek2019","https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/company\/38149867\/"]},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/thegeek.games\/#\/schema\/person\/63ce33ed5b52a1f8ce39db09ffc8f728","name":"Angyal Anik\u00f3","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/thegeek.games\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/thegeek.games\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/Aniko-2-96x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/thegeek.games\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/Aniko-2-96x96.jpg","caption":"Angyal Anik\u00f3"},"description":"Anik\u00f3, our news editor and communication manager, is more interested in the business side of the gaming industry. She worked at banks, and she has a vast knowledge of business life. Still, she likes puzzle and story-oriented games, like Sherlock Holmes: Crimes & Punishments, which is her favourite title. She also played The Sims 3, but after accidentally killing a whole sim family, swore not to play it again. (For our office address, email and phone number check out our IMPRESSUM)","sameAs":["https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/aniko.angyal.54"],"url":"https:\/\/thegeek.games\/author\/aniko\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thegeek.games\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105389","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thegeek.games\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thegeek.games\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thegeek.games\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thegeek.games\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=105389"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thegeek.games\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105389\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":105390,"href":"https:\/\/thegeek.games\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105389\/revisions\/105390"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thegeek.games\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30734"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thegeek.games\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=105389"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thegeek.games\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=105389"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thegeek.games\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=105389"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}