Epic Games wins case against Fortnite cheat Brandon Despotakis

Epic Games won a case against Fortnite cheater Brandon Despotakis.

Every Fortnite player has had a run-in with some sort of cheater at some point in their time playing the game. Whether the opposing player phases through walls, use aimbots, or finds ways to get their hands on V-Bucks without going through proper channels; cheating in Fortnite is pretty common.

It’s not all-consuming to the point of unplayable, however. It’s simply something that happens every so often. Most cheaters are given a 24-hour ban for their first offense, depending on how severe it is.  If it’s too severe, they’ll be outright banned for life on their first offense. This is a rarity.

It’s even rarer that a lifetime ban isn’t enough. Sometimes they’ll take you to court, like what happened with Australian Brandon Despotakis. Despotakis, also known as BlazeFN online, was taken to court for selling unauthorized cheats, as well as compromised accounts. Basically, he was stealing revenue.

The courts ruled in favor of Epic Games

The lawsuit was handled by the Federal Court of Australia, and they found that Despotakis had violated the license agreement for Fortnite; aka the Fortnite End User License Agreement or EULA. In doing so he was found guilty of violating the terms of service, as well as infringing on Epic’s copyrights.

Despotakis has to pay a fine that Epic Games will donate to charity, and also had to post a letter online detailing his duplicitous actions. It’s not known how much Despotakis will have to donate, but the donation will go to Epic Games’ nonprofit, Child’s Play charity.

In Despotakis’ apology letter, he reveals that he’s under penalty of law forever doing this again, meaning that he probably received some sort of suspended sentence. While he had to pay a fine and will likely be subject to harsher penalties should he ever do this again, it’s not likely to be the last time we hear about these types of things.