Fortnite’s parent company is suing two Michigan men, accusing them of stealing thousands of dollars from the game.
Idris Nahdi and Ayob Nasser allegedly stole tens of thousands of dollars through Fortnite by creating thousands of bots to provide an altered amount of engagements on their created islands.
Recommended Videos
For context
Fortnite is a multiplayer online game with over 500 million registered players across the world.
Players on Fortnite can create custom islands for other players to join in the game using Unreal Editor for Fortnite. Epic then created an “Island Creator Program” to reward developers through an engagement pool.
Island developers can make money from their customized islands based on engagement and player visits. The developers can then cash out their earnings from their customized islands on a monthly basis.
Lawsuit against Michigan men
A lawsuit was filed against the two men in the United States Court for the Eastern District of Michigan on Oct. 7, 2025.
The lawsuit alleges that Nahdi and Nasser created multiple Fortnite accounts and gave inaccurate or incomplete personal information to Epic, Fortnite’s parent company, to do so.
Nahdi and Nasser are accused of creating over 20,000 fake bot accounts to artificially engage with their custom Islands they had published to illicitly increase their engagement payouts.
The lawsuit stated the alleged scheme began in December 2024 and continued through Feb. 28, 2025.
Nahdi allegedly created 10,000 bot accounts to engage with his own Islands. The bot account accounted for over 90% of visitors to several of his Islands.
Nasser had about 5,000 bot accounts, which accounted for 90% of the visitors to the islands.
As a result, they allegedly received tens of thousands of dollars for the supposed engagements on their islands.
Epic accused the Michigan men of knowingly violating its terms because they signed and agreed to them when creating their accounts.
Fortnite’s parent company was made aware of the alleged activity after the two men were paid out of their December 2024 engagement.
Epic investigated their conduct and found that nine out of ten of their islands that received engagement payments had over 80% artificial engagement. Epic then withheld the men’s engagement payout in January and February 2025.
The lawsuit stated that as a result of the men’s alleged actions, “Epic had suffered damages in an amount to be proven at trial.”
Breach of contract
The lawsuit stated that the Michigan men violated the following conditions on Fortnite:
“Use it commercially or for a promotional purpose except as Epic expressly authorizes; behave in a manner which is detrimental to the enjoyment of [Fortnite] by other users as intended by Epic, in Epic’s sole judgment, including but not limited to… spamming, socia; engineering, [and] scamming.”
Further, the lawsuit said all players must agree to the Engagement Program Payout Terms, which prohibit players from doing “anything that causes or encourages any artificial manipulation of genuine User engagement, including by using automatic systems or providing third parties with incentives to increase artificial traffic, or otherwise manipulate metrics in any manner.”
Epic accused Nahdi and Nasser of knowingly accepting and agreeing to the conditions before creating the bots, and they breached their agreements.
Copyright infringement
According to the lawsuit, the game’s conditions agreement automatically terminates accounts “without notice if you fail to comply.”
“Upon any termination, the License will automatically terminate, you may no longer exercise any of the rights granted to you by the License, and you must destroy all copies of [Fortnite] in your possession,” court documents state.
Epic accused Nahdi and Nasser of accessing Fortnite after they allegedly violated their agreement with the gaming company, which the lawsuit states is copyright infringement.
Lawsuit request for relief
In the lawsuit, Epic Games, Inc. is asking for Nahdi and Nasser to be permanently prohibited from creating any account associated with Epic Games, receiving payments from the gaming company in connection with the Island Creator Program, infringing Epic’s copyrights, downloading or installing any of Epic’s copyrighted works and accessing any server owned by Epic.
Epic is seeking all damages permitted by law, including costs from the lawsuit, as well as attorneys’ fees.