Parents sued Epic games over Fortnite's 'FOMO' timers

Parents have accused Fortnite developer Epic Games of causing "the illusion of scarcity" and "FOMO" through its store products in a proposed class-action lawsuit. Two parents have brought a claim on behalf of their kids in a San Francisco court, according to Polygon, pointing to "deceptive practices employed on a massive scale in one of the world’s most popular video games [Fortnite]".

Like a lot of in-game cosmetic shops, Fortnite will offer limited-time or daily sales, with live timers that indicate how long the sale will last. Most of the time, the lawsuit claims, these goods "remained available for purchase, often at the same purportedly discounted rate, for many days or even weeks at a time."

"This was an unlawful scheme," the suit argues. "Fake sales with made-up expiration times are deceptive and illegal under state statutes proscribing unfair and deceptive trade practices, which prohibit misleading advertisements concerning the reasons for or existence of price reductions and representing that items have characteristics or qualities they do not have. Numerous courts have found that fake countdown timers like Epic’s run afoul of these and similar prohibitions.”

The lawsuit points to a $1,200,000 fine that the Netherlands imposed on Epic for the same matter last year. According to research by the Authority for Consumers and Markets (ACM), a large number of products that had 24-hour countdowns on their listings really stayed the same price for much longer than those 24-hour periods. Earlier this week, a player was sued by Epic Games for allegedly stealing and selling a large number of user identities, then making more money by disclosing the specifics of his schemes to other would-be thieves. 

Valve eliminated Steam EULA

The antitrust law case against Valve over Steam, which was enhanced to a class action last year, is one of the most notable examples of the growing number of cases filed against large creators and custodians of significant digital storefronts over in-game sales. However, preventing a class action can occasionally be better than "arbitration overload," an inadvertent consequence of the mandated arbitration provisions that are common in IT EULAs and are typically corporate-favoring and antagonistic to consumers.

Last year, Valve eliminated its own arbitration provision from the Steam EULA, most likely because it had been declared "unenforceable."