The developer of the game Fortnite, Epic Games, must pay a fine of 245 million dollars for forcing gamers to pay microtransactions, even if they did not want to do so, according to News.ro.

The Federal Trade Commission, the U.S. market and competition authority, has closed its investigation into Epic Games’ possible design strategies to trick users into paying for microtransactions and ordered the game maker to pay a $245 million fine.

The money will be used to compensate Americans who played Fortnite and were cheated in this way.

The FTC alleges that Epic used what the industry calls “dark patterns” — designs designed specifically to get a user to take a certain action.

Technology companies, including Meta and Google, also quite often use such dark patterns in their own products to identify the user to use certain features that serve their business strategies.

In the case of Fortnite, investigators say the GUI and main menu were specifically designed to allow gamers to make unintended microtransactions. They accidentally clicked a button that led to the purchase of virtual objects.

The company is also accused of facilitating purchases by children without parental consent and threatening to block the accounts of those who initiate disputes about unauthorized transactions.

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) order became final after it was announced in December.

Epic is not the first offense. So far, the company has collected more than half a billion dollars in fines, and another 275 million dollars must be paid for the illegal collection of children’s data.

(article photo: DreamsTime.com)