Fortnite Class Action Says Minors Lured Into In-Game Purchases

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A father and his son claim that the makers of the game Fortnite use manipulative tactics to encourage players, especially minors, to make in-game purchases.

Plaintiff Steve Altes says that his son, R.A., is a minor who plays the popular video game Fortnite.

Fortnite is an “open-world survival video game in which players collect weapons, tools, and resources, also commonly referred to as loot, in order to survive and advance in the game.”

According to Altes, “loot” is acquired either by earning points in the game or by using real-world money to make in-game purchases.

The Fortnite in-game purchases class action lawsuit claims that Fortnite preys on minors and their inability to make good judgements and exercise self-control around money.

This allegedly has led Fortnite to gain exorbitant prices just from in-game purchases. Altes notes at Fornite has gained $1 billion in profits just from in-game purchases.

To support this claim, Altes cites experts, including UNC Healthcare pediatrician Jeffrey Ryan who notes that “kids younger than 12 cannot regulate themselves because they don’t have the frontal lobe capacity to do so.”

The Fortnite class action lawsuit goes on to say that this lack of regulation can cause “addictive tendencies where a child cannot set limits or stop certain behaviors.”

Allegedly, Epic Games Inc. takes advantage of this to encourage children to spend their own money and their parents’ money on purchases as they move through the game.

The plaintiff says these in-game purchases are in many cases, the key to enabling a player to advance through the game, so the motivation to make these purchases is strong.

Altes claims that Epic uses a range of other psychological tactics to entice consumers into making in-game purchases. Allegedly, the in-game purchases are made using a fake currency — V bucks, which are purchased with real money, and customers are not able to track how much they spend on in-game purchases.

The Fortnite class action states that the fake currency that is used in the game results in players, mostly children, feeling like they are not spending real money, when, in fact, they are.

Additionally, Altes says that V-bucks do not translate equally to real dollars, so their amounts are sometimes deceptive to discern.

V-bucks purchases are made in amounts that reportedly do not correlate to the price of in-game purchases, so customers continue to not have enough V-bucks to make a purchase when given the opportunity, so they continually have to purchase more V-bucks to make use of extra V-bucks that they have after a purchase.

Epic Games Inc. is also faced with another class action lawsuit, in which players allege that they were injured by a data breach that took place in the summer of 2018.

R.A. and Altes are represented by Daniel L. Warshaw, Melissa S. Weiner, and Alexander L. Simon of Pearson Simon & Warshaw LLP, and by Jeffrey Kaliel and Sophia Gold of Kaliel PLLC.

The Fortnite In-Game Purchases Class Action Lawsuit is R.A., et al. v. Epic Games Inc., Case No. 2:19-cv-01488-GW-E, in the U.S. District Court for the Central Division of California, Western Division.