You'd be hard pressed to find any popular multiplayer game without hackers and cheaters plaguing lobbies, but one Fortnite player made the mistake of bringing that into the professional scene, and has now paid a heavy price for their actions.
There are many reasons why people want to cheat in an online video game, whether it be to climb the ranks of competitive play, show off to their friends, or simply just to experience the feeling of being better than everyone - albeit illegitimately.
While cheating in regular multiplayer has ramifications if you get caught that often end in your account being banned, Fortnite developer Epic Games has shown that its not willing to extend any lenience when money is on the line.
One gamer found that out the hard way in what is likely a landmark case, as a judge has ruled in favor of Epic after alleged cheater Sebastian Araujo earned over $6,000 across 839 tournaments in four months thanks to rule-breaking interference, as reported by GamesRadar.
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It began back in December 2024 when the official Fortnite Competitive X account revealed a new lawsuit against a player who had participated in various Fortnite Championship Series events.
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"This week we files a lawsuit against a player who cheated in our tournaments. This player used cheating software and hardware and tried to avoid getting caught by using multiple accounts," the statement reads. "It didn't work. Cheating has no place in Fortnite and we're doing everything we can to stop it, including legal action."
Most forgot about the statement in the following months, presuming that it hadn't really come to much or that the player had walked away with a small fine at most, yet Epic returned on Wednesday (June 25) with a new update:
"THIS JUST IN: The Judge ruled in our favor after the cheater ignored our lawsuit. The player is required to pay $175,000 and we'll donate what we collect to charity. They are also banned from playing Fortnite forever."
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While earning $6,850 from tournaments will have been great in the short term, having to fork out nearly 26 times that in return will definitely be a hard pill to swallow and is likely aimed at deterring any similar cheaters in the future.
Documents from the lawsuit indicate that "while the Court notes the amount sought by the Plaintiff exceedingly suprasses the Defendant's alleged actual gain, $6850, [the] Defendant took significant measures to conceal the true scope of his cheating activities by creating multiple fake accounts and employing a hardware spoofer to circumvent detections."
Whether this is just the beginning of what could be a lengthy crusade from Epic against cheaters is still unclear, but this particular alleged cheater will no doubt be regretting the decisions he made now. After all, think of how many skins you could buy with $175,000 worth of V-Bucks.