Morgan “RepulseGod” Bamford, a former Fortnite competitor from Australia, was disqualified from the Fortnite Champion Series event in Copenhagen in 2023 after sharing his account with another player in order to qualify for the event. Bamford (or rather, the person who was playing on his account) and his teammate, who goes by Jace online, placed first in a qualifying event in August, which earned the duo a spot in the $4 million Global Championship. That is, until Epic Games learned about Bamford’s actions.
In 2024, Epic Games announced that it was “ramping up legal action” against people who cheat and people who sell cheating software. The company announced Monday that it had pursued legal action against Bamford, who has since been banned from ever playing in a Fortnite tournament again. Settlement money from the legal action action includes the prize money Bamford was awarded. Epic Games declined to share details of the legal action with Polygon, and has not yet replied to a query about where a lawsuit was filed. It’s unclear how much more Bamford must pay in addition to the tournament winnings. Regardless, all the settlement money will be donated to the Child’s Play charity.
Bamford was also required to post an apology to his personal YouTube channel. “I shared my Epic Games account with another user, Forbes, to qualify for the 2023 Fortnite Championship Grand Finals. My actions violated Epics rules and I was disqualified from the tournament,“ he wrote in text shared in a 15-second YouTube video. ”Epic took legal action against me and now Im banned from participating in Fortnite tournaments forever. I also have to paya monetary settlement, which includes the prize money I received but did not win fairly, which Epic will donate to charity. Cheating in tournaments ruins the fun for the players who earned their spot in tournaments and I apologise to the Fortnite community for my actions. I wont ever cheat in Fortnite again.”
From the qualifying event, Bamford and Jace earned $20,000 in prize money. He’d previously been playing in Fortnite tournaments for years, winning thousands of dollars in prize money. Bamford was one of a few professional players who accused Epic Games in 2020 of not paying out prize money from a DreamHack event; Bamford placed fourth in a solo event and won $12,500.
Epic Games has also filed a lawsuit against another Fortnite esports competitor, Sebastian “Sabortian” Araujo. The lawsuit was filed in December, Epic Games announced on social media. The company said at the time that Araujo had used cheating software and hardware; he’d participated in lower-level weekly events over the past few years, winning thousands of dollars in prize money. That case is pending; Araujo was served with the lawsuit on Feb. 9, per court documents viewed by Polygon.
Epic Games has filed more than a dozen similar lawsuits, both in the United States and abroad.
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