Epic Games bans 1,200 accounts for cheating in Fortnite World Cup Online Open

Epic Games banned over 1,200 Fortnite accounts and forfeited the prize money of more than 200 players who already won previously because of cheating. This came after Epic’s investigation on the cheating reports they have received in just the first week of Fortnite’s World Cup Online Open. The cheaters have been caught either playing in multiple regions or sharing accounts and teaming up. Their punishment is a two-week ban for their misconduct. The worst by far has been an individual using cheat software during the semifinals, the said player has been banned permanently. Epic did not disclose the name of that player, however, the team that the player was a part of, Team Kaliber has referred him as Jonathan Kosmala. Team Kaliber announced in their Twitter account that Jonathan is no longer part of their team and that they, of course, had no knowledge about his cheating.

We have released Johnathan Kosmala from our Fortnite team.

We are shocked to learn that he was cheating during the World Cup Qualifiers.

This violation is serious and we have ended our relationship with him. We apologize to our supporters for his lapse in judgement.

— Team Kaliber (@TeamKaliber) 14 de abril de 2019

Desperation must be really seeping into the minds of others who are trying to get at any cost the prizes from Epic, and I must say that it´s a lot of cash in prizes. Epic is giving away $40M during this year’s Fortnite World Cup Online Open and cheaters are just starry-eyed doing whatever they can to grab even a part of the rewards. Epic has warned players, their ‘team continuously monitors competitive play in all regions and will take action against unfair play if necessary.’ They also added that every time a tournament ends, all players are vetted by multiple teams and analytical process to verify fair play according to the rules they have set for the game. All the players must adhere to the Fortnite Code of Conduct and the Fortnite End User License Agreement.

The Fortnite World Cup Online Open tournament began last April 13th and will continue for the next nine weeks. Winners will split a $1 million prize pool each week and the best players are going to New York for the World Cup Finals on July 26th-28th, 2019, in an event that will offer a $30M prize pool.