Epic Games has initiated a lawsuit against two individuals, Idris Nahdi and Ayob Nasser, accusing them of exploiting a botting scheme that artificially inflated player engagement on their custom Fortnite maps. The company is demanding the return of money earned improperly and a ban on the defendants from creating further accounts.

Fortnite’s platform allows users to design custom maps, which can lead to earnouts based on player interaction. However, the defendants allegedly created over 20,000 bots that engaged excessively with their maps, resulting in inflated engagement metrics. Epic contends that due to this scheme, nearly all player engagement on their maps was fabricated.

The court papers reveal Epic’s desire to safeguard the integrity of its creator program and ensure that legitimate developers receive fair compensation. Furthermore, Epic’s lawyers are requesting the court impose a ban preventing the defendants from creating new Epic accounts or playing Fortnite altogether.