https://www.techpowerup.com/302367/epic-games-to-pay-usd-520-million-for-using-deceptive-patterns-on-children
 
Fortnite maker, Epic Games, has on Monday reached a settlement in court in an investigation by the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC), to pay a total of 520 million US Dollars in fines. This fine is because Epic deployed shady tactics of manipulating children into purchasing Fortnite V-bucks, skins, etc., without proper consent forms and purchase order confirmations. Even with millions of complaints from parents, Epic decided to proceed with its tactics and used dark patterns that deceived the original intent. Thus, the FTC has made a case that this violates the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) rule, and Epic Games will have to pay the fine.

The fine is consists of two separate causes. The $275 million monetary penalty for violating the COPPA Rule—the largest penalty ever obtained for violating an FTC rule, and the $245 million to refund consumers for its dark patterns and billing practices. The refund fine is FTC's most considerable refund amount in a gaming case and its most significant administrative order in history. Epic said, "Over the past few years, we've been making changes to ensure our ecosystem meets the expectations of our players and regulators, which we hope will be a helpful guide for others in our industry. " The official statement is far longer, and you can read about it here.
 
This is a strong punishment to make sure a company like EPIC sticks to the law in my personal opinion. 

It's a hefty fine and hopefully others in the industry take note.

 
Wow that's a big fine, and presumably designed to send a message to all other game authors. I do not like the micro-transactions that have been introduced in many games, so if this helps curb that behavior, then good.
 

firerain
That's like a touch on the wrist for them. If it was in billions then it would have been a punishment.
"Fortnite generated $5.8 billion revenue in 2021, surpassing its previous annual record of $5.4 billion in 2018."

Revenue does not mean profit. EVGA knows all about this... they made a lot of revenue with NVidia cards, but the profit margin was small. Epic Games (company) is valued around $32B, so this is a significant hit, but it won't bankrupt them.