Fortnite – COMPETITIVE PAYMENTS AND SUPPORT-A-CREATOR UPDATE

Hi, Epic community.

We have some important updates on Competitive prizes and Support-A-Creator payments.

COMPETITIVE PRIZES UPDATE

Recently, we experienced delays in Competitive prize payments due to two separate issues. The first issue was related to our DreamHack Anaheim event. Here, we encountered delays due to additional California state tax withholding that required manual processing of prizes outside of the Hyperwallet system. All prizes for DreamHack Anaheim have been sent directly to player bank accounts. These prizes should be deposited in the respective winners’ accounts in the next few days. We apologize for the delay. The second issue was related to overpayment of prizes for some winners of online cups due to a clerical error and required manual correction. Now that we have sorted out the overpayment issues, we are back on track to process prizes in a more timely manner.

SUPPORT-A-CREATOR PAYMENTS UPDATE

All payments have recently transitioned to a new system using Tax Identity and Hyperwallet to handle validating Creators' identities and managing payouts. This onboarding process was not without its obstacles, bugs and delays, and we apologize to all Creators for the frustration and confusion caused during this rollout.  While many of these issues have since been resolved, below are some of the most common solutions for users not receiving payments:

• Minors are required to have parental consent and information to use the payment platform.
• Please ensure your correct payment method is selected prior to processing payments.
• Setting up a new personal or business entity in the Hyperwallet platform requires a new email address. One email account cannot be used for multiple personal or business entities.

If you are still encountering problems unrelated to the issues outlined above, please be sure and watch our Hyperwallet Account Activation tutorial or reach out to Support-A-Creator Player Support for assistance. We are working to add more Player Support agents to help solve these issues.

SUPPORT-A-CREATOR SCAMS

We are aware of a number of Creators making content designed to scam and defraud players, and we’re taking actions to both remove these Creators from the ecosystem and prevent similar scams in the future. Typically, these individuals create social media material that promises false special benefits to players in return for using a specific Support-A-Creator code. Another common scam involves Creative islands that promise rewards to players like free V-Bucks gift cards. The players that use these codes never receive the special benefits they were promised by the Creator. Creators cannot provide Outfit or free V-Bucks rewards for using a Creator code. Making content aimed to scam and defraud players is a violation of Creators’ agreement with Epic Games. Penalties for these violations include removal from the Support-A-Creator program and cancellation of any pending or potential payments. We take violations of the Terms of Service and Code of Conduct seriously, and are looking at additional measures to prevent bad actors from abusing the program, up to and including potential legal action. To prevent future fraud, we are putting measures in place to protect players from content aimed to scam and defraud them including:

• Creator code changes are no longer available for the foreseeable future.
• A future version of Support-A-Creator will require all new and existing Creators to update and maintain their profiles with legitimate social media accounts.

We want to keep the Creator ecosystem fair and safe for both Creators and players. Fraud in the program diverts Support-A-Creator revenue away from honest Creators who make awesome, high-quality content and support Fortnite, the Epic Games Store and players. To report scam content, please submit a Player Support ticket and add the hashtag #reportacreator. A screenshot of the Creator code and link to the content is required for us to investigate. A video is even better. Thank you to everyone in the community for supporting Creators, and thank you Creators for supporting Fortnite!