Fortnite maker Epic Games sued over ‘deceptive’ Item Shop timers

Two parents, on behalf of their children, are suing Epic Games in a proposed class action lawsuit over “deceptive practices employed on a massive scale in one of the world’s most popular video games,” — that’s Fortnite — per the complaint. The lawsuit, which Polygon has reviewed, was filed Wednesday in a San Francisco court; it cites research claiming that Fortnite’s Item Shop creates “the illusion of scarcity” that triggers “FOMO” — or the fear of missing out — in kids playing the game. The plaintiffs are looking to the court for class action status.

Essentially, the plaintiffs take issue with the Item Shop’s refresh timers. Here’s how the lawyers explain:

But, when their countdown timers expired, Fortnite’s Item Shop products did not disappear or return to full price. They 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. 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.

Not exactly that Epic Games is creating scarcity with its Fortnite skins, but that, at times, the Fortnite refresh counters aren’t always accurate. The plaintiffs say that sometimes, when timers expire, products in the Item Shop don’t return to full price or disappear — and stay that way “often for many days or weeks at a time.” If this complaint sounds familiar, that’s because it is: The Netherlands Authority for Consumers and Markets fined Epic Games €1,125,000 (roughly $1,200,000) in 2024 for its “misleading countdown timers” and other features that “exploited the vulnerabilities of children.”

Epic Games announced in 2024 it was appealing the decision, and while that appeal is pending, it removed the ability for people under 18 to see or purchase stuff from the Item Shop that’s available for less than 48 hours. It also took issue was the decision, saying it contained “significant factual errors about how Fortnite and the Item Shop operate.”

The month prior to the 2024 fine, Epic Games did make changes to its Item Shop where it changed how it displayed the Item Shop timer and added “the date that an item will rotate out of the shop” to an item’s description. The lawsuit cited the Netherlands fine in its complaint: “As part of its investigation, the Dutch authority surveyed 60 item sets offered for sale in the Fortnite Item Shop, each displayed with a 24-hour countdown timer. This study found that half of the item sets studied were offered longer than 24 hours. For a subset of fourteen of the item sets, the Dutch authority recorded precisely how many days the sets were on offer. This was always longer than 24 hours and on average 15 days.”

The thing about Fortnite skins and other items is that they are, indeed, highly coveted by the community. The scarcity created by the rotating Item Shop makes some skins more valuable than others, so much that there’s a black market for buying and selling Fortnite accounts with rare items. (Epic Games is actually in court to take down at least one of those sellers.) The plaintiff’s lawyers bring up one particularly rare skin, Renegade Raider, which was available in Fortnite’s first season.

“Some items, such as the ultra-rare Renegade Raider outfit, were offered briefly and have not been offered in more than six years,” lawyers write. “Others disappear only to reappear weeks later. These offerings and their schedules are subjects of intense interest to Fortnite players.”

Renegade Raider, however, did return to the game in December 2024 as a celebration of the Fornite OG season. But people who had the outfit from 2017 got an exclusive skin to keep their investment special.

Regardless, the plaintiffs cited several counts against Epic Games, including the North Carolina Unfair and Deceptive Trade Practices Act, the California Consumers Legal Remedies Act, the California False Advertising Law, the California Unfair Competition Law, and the Texas Unfair and Deceptive Practices Act. (One plaintiff is in Texas, another in California, and Epic Games is in North Carolina, which is why these states’ laws are cited.) Next, a judge will determine whether the lawsuit can move forward as a class action, potentially bringing many more people into the fray.