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You'll find him grinding platinum trophies and breaking the meta with his \"fun\" picks in the ranked queue when he's not reading his favourite Fantasy books. Previously wrote for GG Recon, ESTNN, and many more. Contact: [email protected]","sameAs":["https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/rijit-banerjee-865932182","https:\/\/x.com\/RijitWrites","https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/@rijitbanerjee6066"],"url":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/author\/rijitbanerjee"}]}},"raw_content":"Fortnite\u00a0developers Epic Games is appealing against the $1.2 million fines levied by the Netherlands Authority for Consumers and Markets (ACM), which were handed down for using what the investigative body described as \"unfair commercial practices\" through the in-game store to \"exploit children's fear of missing out (FOMO).\" In a statement released today, Epic Games\u00a0suggested the ACM had made \"significant factual errors\" in its investigation into the battle royale and further noted that the changes would result in a \"poor experience for players\" in\u00a0Fortnite.\u00a0 While the company's appeal is pending, it's already made changes for Dutch gamers. Starting from May 24, children under 18 will not be \"able to see or purchase items that are in the shop for less than 48 hours.\" This will go into effect at the start of next season. ACM's investigation\u00a0found two fundamental issues with\u00a0Fortnite's\u00a0item shop, upon which they issued fines. Firstly, the game's marketing terms\u2014mainly the listing phrases \"Get It Now\" or \"Buy Now\"\u2014paired with timers that create a sense of scarcity in digital goods which are not actually scarce but influence the children's purchasing habits. Secondly, according to ACM, the battle royale's countdown timers were wildly inaccurate.\u00a0They observed some items would not go away even after the 24-hour window expires, but the seemingly ticking countdowns put \"pressure\" on children to purchase or lose the item, creating a \"dark pattern\" in Epic's intentional design choice. Fortnite\u00a0also\u00a0revamped its item store recently removing all the rarities, which brought mixed reactions from the community. The developers also\u00a0removed the 24-hour window rotation in its item shop. Furthermore, they will add individual rotation times tailored to each player's time zone to improve transparency on the item's timing of leaving the store. ACM has given Epic a deadline of June 10, 2024, for the Fortnite devs to \"reduce the uncertainty regarding the availability of its offerings in the item shop and increase the decision period for children under the age of 18 years.\"","apple_news_notices":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/Screenshot-140.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1229276"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2041"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1229276"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1229276\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1229354,"href":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1229276\/revisions\/1229354"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1196938"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1229276"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1229276"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1229276"},{"taxonomy":"invoiceable_action","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/invoiceable_action?post=1229276"},{"taxonomy":"internal-label","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/internal-label?post=1229276"},{"taxonomy":"article_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/article_type?post=1229276"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=1229276"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}

Fortnite <\/em>has been under some heat. Screenshot by Dot Esports<\/figcaption><\/figure>

While the company’s appeal is pending, it’s already made changes for Dutch gamers. Starting from May 24, children under 18 will not be “able to see or purchase items that are in the shop for less than 48 hours.” This will go into effect at the start of next season.<\/p>