Epic Games have filed lawsuits against two alleged cheaters in Fortnite. According to Game Informer, Epic is seeking to take two young men to court for developing a cheat tool for use in Fortnite. Not only that but Epic wants to send a message for the duo having the verve to not only devise a cheat tool but also find ways to bypass Epic’s detection.

According to the lawsuit, Epic claims that one of the two men have a history of cheating in Fortnite and has been banned nine times already.

Epic is also suing them for copyright infringement, which Game Informer notes carries a fine of up to $150,000.

The response to Epic’s suing of the cheaters has mostly been universally praised by the community, who feel as if it sends a strong message to the community that cheating won’t be tolerated.

In fact, this isn’t the first time that Epic has been fighting against their own audience, they also took extreme measures by banning players for teaming up together in the Battle Royale mode. Some people thought that Epic had gone a bit too far, others felt that it was necessary to keep the game fair. Eventually Epic stopped banning people and added a squad mode to the game.

However, cheaters will find ways to cheat… it’s simply in their nature. Epic attempting to sue the cheaters has led some people to think that maybe cheaters will become even more emboldened to hack the game, in which case the lawsuit will only bring more attention to the problem instead of fixing it.

Epic has been desperate to do what they can to build up a stable audience for Fortnite in the way of securing 10 million downloads for the free version of their Battle Royale mode. The full game is still a year off from release, but it Epic seems desperate for player retention, so I suppose if suing the hackers is one way of retaining the playerbase, then that’s what they’ll do.

(Thanks for the news tip Vic Headrust)