Epic Games found itself dealing with PR ugliness last week when it was revealed that one of the people caught in the lawsuit Fortnite cheaters is a 14 year old boy. The revelations came alongside a highly unwarranted response from the boy’s mother, who claimed that Epic was using her son as a scapegoat – and that making his name public is itself illegal.
In a letter sent to court on November 30 (via TorrentFreak), Epic’s legal counsel pointed out that legal restrictions on the use of a child’s name under the law only apply if the person is known to be a minor. “We didn’t violate Regulation 5.2(a) or Regional Civil Regulation 17.2 because we didn’t know when we filed the papers that the Defendant was a minor,” he said.
The response added that while the use of his mother’s child’s name in the letter he sent to court could be considered a waiver, “we only plan to include Defendant’s initials or change the name entirely in all future filings with the Court.” It concludes by seeking guidance on previous filings, including names of underage defendants: Whether current filings should be sealed, should the act be resubmitted with names that have been edited or simply left out.
Optics suing people over cheats in video games might not be great, but the “future submission” suggestion in the response pretty clearly shows that Epic isn’t ready to back down just yet. However, it doesn’t seem to destroy or even punish, nor is it the target of the wrath it ignites. A settlement was reached by Charles Vraspir, one of the Fortnite cheaters the studio sued in October, permanently barring him from cheating again in Fortnite or any other Epic game, under penalty of a minimum $5000 penalty if he did. But there’s no other penalty anymore, meaning that as long as he refrains from cheating in this particular game (unless and until Epic makes another), he’s effectively escaped.
