Fortnite is one of the “current crazes,” with impressive popularity and a position as the leading game in the battle royale genre. The idea is to place 100 players in one location and have only one remain at the end as the great champion. To do so, that player must gather materials, build towers, and collect weapons as well. The game is free with a microtransaction system, but these purchases are only cosmetic and have little (or no) relevance to gameplay.
Because of its popularity, more than half of Switch users have Fortnite installed on their systems, there are more than 130 million players spread across all platforms, and the game generates hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue every month.
However, every enormous success produces controversies of a similarly enormous scale. That is why we decided to select five controversies involving Fortnite.
1 - Character Breasts with "Overly Realistic" Physics
When performing the Jubilation emote, the Cowgirl character's breasts moved in a way that caused controversy online because of the high degree of sexualization. At the time, Epic Games gave an interview to the international website Kotaku, claiming it was not intentional.
“This was not intentional. We are embarrassed by our negligence in letting this slip through. We are working right now to fix it as quickly as possible.”
The incident drew negative reactions from many people online, while many others made jokes with memes. Within a few days, Epic released an update correcting the “problem.”
2 - Copyright Infringement Lawsuits over the Dances
Every so often, someone sues Epic Games for copyright infringement involving the characters' victory dances, known as emotes in the game. One of the best-remembered cases involved actor Alfonso Ribeiro, Carlton from The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, who claimed that the Fresh dance was a clear reference to his enduring character.
“Epic has profited from downloadable content in the game, including emotes such as ‘Fresh.’ In addition, Epic failed to compensate or even ask Mr. Ribeiro for permission to use his intellectual property.” - his lawyer told TMZ.
Another very famous case involved rapper Russell “Backpack Kid” Horning, who created the Floss dance, which was allegedly used improperly in Fortnite.
3 - PUBG Corp Sued Epic Games for Plagiarism
In May 2018, PUBG Corp filed a lawsuit against Epic Games for copyright infringement because this game used the battle royale genre, which had originally been invented for PlayerUnknown´s Battlegrounds. At the time, many believed the lawsuit was intended to "stifle" Fortnite's popularity, since it was beginning to surpass PUBG in player numbers.
However, a few months later the company "backed down" and dropped the lawsuit on the grounds that plagiarism would be difficult to prove, since Fortnite used ideas from PUBG but the two games are very different from each other. In addition, the Chinese company Tencent holds shares in both companies, albeit minority stakes, and PUBG Corp itself developed its game using Unreal Engine, created by Epic Games.
4 - Epic Games Sues a Minor over Cheats
The reverse has also happened: Epic Games initiated a series of lawsuits against several players who used cheats in Fortnite. Curiously, one of those sued was a minor only 14 years old, sparking the fury of his mother, who claimed in interviews that the problem was handled in a "highly disproportionate" manner.
According to her, in a letter sent to the court, the agreement established for the game was not legally binding and a minor would therefore need an adult's authorization, which did not happen because she herself was not consulted. Besides that, her son was merely being used as a "target" to prevent other players from repeating what he did and, finally, she claims the company violated the laws of the state of Delaware (in the US, each state has its own laws) by publicly disclosing information about her son.
Epic, meanwhile, explained its reasons for the lawsuit in an email sent to Kotaku - “This particular lawsuit resulted from the defendant filing a DMCA counter-notice in response to a takedown notice for a YouTube video that showed and promoted cheats and exploits in Fornite battle royale. Under these circumstances, the law requires us to file a lawsuit or withdraw the request.”
5 - Overpowered Sword
A little lighter than the previous controversies, the Infinity Blade sword was supposed to be one of the major attractions of Fortnite update 7.0.1, but it ended up causing considerable controversy in the community because it gave its users disproportionate advantages, since there was no effective way to counter it.
Eventually, Epic Games released a corrective patch that reduced its attributes, but it did not work, so the company removed it completely to restore balance to matches.
