Fortnite player fined $175K by Epic Games and banned for life following cheating spree

One prolific Fortnite cheater who exploited competitive tournaments has been given a massive fine and has been banned from playing the game for life.

Fortnite maker Epic Games sued California cheater Sebastian Araujo following his participation in over 830 cash tournaments where he was caught cheating using a special device designed to bypass Fortnite’s anti-cheating detection tools, IGN reports.

Araujo apparently won roughly $6,850 from falsely competing in these Fortnite tournaments.

But those wins were shortly dashed after Epic Games sued the cheater for over $175,500, which is 25 times more than Araujo’s original earnings.

Documents shared with IGN showed that Epic Games demanded a minimum of $200 for each copyright violation, totaling 839 tournaments.

That means that the total fine set against Araujo is $167,800, according to IGN’s calculations, and the remainder of the money should go towards lawyers' fees and other costs.

However, Epic Games went further and demanded an additional $100,000 fine for damages, which was deemed excessive by the judge.

According to court documents, Arajuo took “significant measures to conceal the true scope of his cheating activities.”

He apparently created fake accounts and used a hardware spoofer to get around the anti-cheating detection system.

A hardware spoofer, otherwise known as an HWID spoofer, is software specifically designed to conceal a device’s unique hardware identifiers.

This presumably allowed Araujo to disguise his device as a completely separate computer or console so he could continue to play in cash tournaments he’d already competed in.

Epic won its legal battle against Araujo, who supposedly attempted to ignore the lawsuit. The man must now pay the huge fine and is banned from playing Fortnite for life.