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[Coulomb_Barrier]

275 million is like nothing for EPIC.. couple months of MTX

I keep seeing this. Do people grossly overestimate the size of EPIC? In total their fine is $500m. This year, their gross income was $700m. Regardless of revenue, it's profit that is important. Such a fine takes a sizeable chunk out of their coffers.

 

[Ronin_7]

FTC & CMA are tearing tech apart

 

[ReBurn]

But FTC has no authority?

Good to see regulators in action and doing their job -- regulating stuff.

I mean they really don't have any authority. If Epic thought they could win in court they would have gone to court. But they knew they did it and they knew they would lose. A settlement agreement was their cheapest path to resolution so they can get back to taking $5 billion per year from kids.

 

[zombrex]

Uh oh Epic, time for some virtue signaling to distract people away from this negative PR:

I like how they covered the stomaches of the virtual versions of those overweight people.
Except for the skinny disabled girl who got her stomache revealed. LMAO.
Countdown until they get attacked for virtual body shamming.

 

[gothmog]

I've never had an issue personally but know friends whose kids have racked up some healthy bills before they caught it. FTC must have had a much larger number in mind if Epic is just taking a fine that large on the chin.

 

[ProtoByte]

This is one of those headlines that's put out to make the FTC look a lot more productive and worthwhile than it actually is.

Others here have already pointed out that this is a drop in Fortnite's bucket of money (5.8 billion just in 2021), let alone Epic's. A larger point to be made is that it's an even smaller drop in the bucket of this type of F2P model ravaging both core games and the mobile market to an even larger extent. We could go down the list of games and count the billions made in and out of the US, and it will all go almost entirely uninterrupted.

For Epic though, it might be a bit of a signal from the FTC and maybe even some in congress that they need to get in line or get higher on the lobbying tally.

Federal Trade Commission Lobbying Profile

In 2022, 219 clients lobbied Federal Trade Commission. See the details.

www.opensecrets.org

To say nothing of how this quarter+ billion in penalties is going to be used or where it will be funneled, by an administration that is already spending more money than it has sense. To say nothing of the fact that this minute sum of refunds is not going to reverse or change the culture of instant gratification and easy-dopamine pushed by corporations, incentivized by government, and abetted by parents and peers.

While this sounds very heroic now, the truth is that the majority of this revenue come from grown adults whom are still susceptible to the methods talked about here. Not much can or even should be done to stop that legislatively under a supposedly society and market. And anyone who got "duped" by Epic now is probably not going to be hard to dupe in the future.

 

[In Cold Blood]

I always wonder where the money from these "fines" go?

This is what shits me.
Epic rips off customers, government fines Epic, keeps the money and the customers get fucking nothing. It's a scam.

 

[Ezekiel_]

This is what shits me.
Epic rips off customers, government fines Epic, keeps the money and the customers get fucking nothing. It's a scam.

You haven't read through the link provided.

Stay mad I guess.

 

[JCK75]

I have nothing but hate for epic but this is just stupid.