Epic coughs up the dirty V-Bucks: Fortnite's 'dark pattern' refunds hit accounts

Consumers tricked into making unwanted purchases in Epic Games' popular Fortnite title should see refunds start to hit their accounts this week, according to the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC).

The FTC said Monday that it was disbursing a round of refunds totaling more than $72 million a little less than two years since it found Epic Games guilty of implementing "dark patterns" in Fortnite. The dark patterns in Fortnite's UI, the FTC reiterated in its statement, helped trick players into making purchases they didn't want, and allowed minors to rack up charges without parental consent.

"Fortnite's counterintuitive, inconsistent, and confusing button configuration led players of all ages to incur unwanted charges based on the press of a single button," the FTC said. "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."

Fortnite is driven in large part by microtransactions for cosmetic gear, dances, weapon skins, and other non-gameplay-affecting items. Players and parents are eligible for a portion of the refund if they were charged for in-game currency between January 2017 and September 2022, if their child made an unauthorized purchase between January 2017 and November 2018, and if a player had their account locked between January 2017 and September 2022 after complaining about wrongful charges.

The FTC said it was disbursing 629,344 refunds in this first round, with a considerable chunk of the $245 million Epic was forced to pay still reserved for future payouts. The average payment is said to be around $114, with payments being distributed to PayPal accounts and by check.

It's not clear if the Epic refunds will reimburse consumers for the full amount they were tricked into paying. Refunds are based on information provided when applying for compensation, an FTC spokesperson told The Register, but the FTC's frequently asked questions page for refunds states that proportional payments are the norm as it usually can't claw back every penny victims are owed.

The dark patterns settlement was just one half of the matters Epic and the FTC resolved in late 2022. Along with being found guilty of tricking people into making purchases, Epic was also found liable for violating the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act and ordered to pay $275 million for collecting and storing personal information of underage users without parental consent.

When asked for comment, Epic referred us to a statement issued when the FTC announced the settlement in 2022.

Epic Games? More like Epic Litigators

While the FTC matter is behind it, Epic is still fighting other legal battles involving accusations that it has tried wringing every last cent out of the platforms it relies on to distribute its titles.

• Epic Games starts Battle Royale with Samsung, Google over app store practices
• Game not over: Epic brings Fortnite back to iOS in Europe, using its own app store
• Epic accuses Apple of foul play over iOS access, wants EU to show DMA red card
• Apple's had it with Epic's app store shenanigans, terminates dev account

An appeals court decided Epic's case against Apple last year largely in Apple's favor – that Cupertino wasn't being a monopolist by demanding a cut of in-app purchases (IAPs) – with the caveat that Apple had to allow developers to steer customers away from the App Store to offer cheaper IAPs. The US Supreme Court ended the matter by refusing to hear appeals from either side, leading to Apple opening up to IAPs made outside the App Store but still requiring developers to pay it a cut.

Apple and Epic continued to duke it out in the EU over Epic's right to have its own third-party app store on iOS, to which Apple eventually relented.

Epic and Google, on the other hand, are still facing off after a judge found the Google Play Store was a monopoly for the same reasons that Apple managed to escape the same judgement – that it forced devs to pay commissions for the use of its and third-party payment systems.

Google was enjoined to cease the behavior in October and open Android up to third-party app stores, which the search giant has vowed to appeal against. ®