Dimas Ibnu25/09/2026
5 min read
Epic Games has been sued for more than €100 million over Fortnite’s Item Shop by Dutch consumer group Stichting Massaschade & Consument (SMC), which says the shop pressured players under 21 into spending real money. A Dutch regulator has already fined Epic for pressure tactics aimed at children, and a court upheld that fine in January 2026.
The class action hasn’t reached a judge yet. On 23 September 2026, SMC said it had served Epic with a formal notice of liability and invited the company to negotiate a collective settlement. If those talks fail, SMC says it will take Epic to court.
What SMC Is Demanding From Epic Games
The €100 million-plus figure bundles together three separate demands:
- Refunds for money Dutch players spent in Fortnite while under 21, specifically purchases SMC says were made under pressure from the shop’s design.
- Damages on top of those refunds.
- Compensation over personal data, based on SMC’s allegation that Epic collected children’s personal data without parental consent.
So this isn’t a blanket refund of every V-Bucks purchase a Dutch teenager ever made. The refund side targets spending SMC links to pressure tactics, which is why most of the case rests on how the shop was built.
To support that argument, SMC cites research covering more than 1,000 Dutch teenagers aged 16 to 19. Among those who had bought virtual currencies such as V-Bucks, six in 10 said it didn’t feel like spending real money, and half said they had regretted a purchase made under time pressure.
SMC also wants Epic to change how it operates, saying the company’s business practices and design choices should be “fully compliant with consumer protection rules.” What it isn’t asking for is a ban. “We aren’t asking for Fortnite to be banned,” said SMC chair Lucia Melcherts.
The €1.125 Million Fine Behind the Claim
SMC isn’t building its case from scratch. In 2024, the Netherlands Authority for Consumers and Markets (ACM) fined Epic €1,125,000 for unfair commercial practices, finding that design choices in the Fortnite Item Shop exploited the vulnerabilities of children. A Rotterdam court upheld the fine in January 2026.
The fine came in two equal halves. Epic was fined €562,500 for shop wording such as “get it now” and “buy now”, and another €562,500 for countdown timers that suggested items would disappear once the clock ran out when they didn’t. SMC’s claim describes the same pattern, with countdown clocks implying a purchase window was closing while the offer was still on sale days later.
Both halves punish the same thing: urgency. One tells a young player to act immediately, and the other puts a clock on screen that makes waiting feel like missing out. Melcherts pointed straight at that ruling when explaining the claim, saying a regulator and a court have already found Epic broke the rules, so “the logical next step is for Epic to pay players back.”
What Epic Says About the Item Shop Now
Epic disputes SMC’s picture of the game. In a statement to GamesIndustry.biz, spokesperson Phil Mahoney said “the Fortnite Item Shop does not have a timer” and listed the protections Epic says are in place for Dutch players:
- Players under 18 in the Netherlands can’t see or buy items that are in the shop for less than 48 hours.
- Players under 16 in the Netherlands get a Cabined Account and can’t make real-money purchases until a parent or guardian consents.
- Parents can require a PIN for real-money purchases and set limits on how long their child plays.
- Purchases need a two-step confirmation, can be cancelled instantly, and Shop items can be returned through self-service.
- Players choose explicitly whether to save their payment details.
That statement describes how the shop works today, while SMC’s refund demand looks back at money already spent. It also leaves two parts of the claim unanswered: it doesn’t address the “buy now”-style wording the ACM fined, and it says nothing about SMC’s allegation over children’s personal data.
How Epic Could Have Avoided the Claim
The rules Epic now describes line up closely with what the ACM punished. A shop with no timer, and a 48-hour minimum before Dutch minors can even see an item, removes the fake-deadline pressure behind half of the fine. Epic’s statement doesn’t say when those rules were introduced, but had the shop worked that way from the start, the ruling SMC now leans on would likely have had far less to find.
Epic also had warning. In 2022, it agreed to pay $520 million to settle two US Federal Trade Commission complaints over children’s privacy and “dark patterns” that the FTC said tricked millions of players into purchases they didn’t intend to make. Those are the same two areas SMC is now raising in the Netherlands, pressure on young spenders and children’s data, and the settlement came two years before the ACM fine.
Epic’s own statement shows Fortnite’s shop can run without a timer, which makes the pressure tactics look like a choice rather than a necessity. That choice is now carrying a very large price tag. Each of the two tactics the ACM identified drew a €562,500 fine, and the claim resting on that ruling seeks more than €100 million, roughly 89 times the combined €1,125,000 penalty.
What Happens if Epic Doesn’t Settle
SMC specialises in mass claims and has previously gone after Airbnb, TikTok, Google, Snapchat, ABN Amro, and Klarna. In 2025, it filed a collective lawsuit against Sony, claiming at least 1.7 million PlayStation owners in the Netherlands overpaid for digital games on the console.
Its record in court is mixed. The Dutch court of appeal dismissed its Airbnb claim, ruling that SMC had to sue in Ireland, where Airbnb’s European headquarters are based, and that case is now before the Dutch Supreme Court. SMC was also declared inadmissible in its case against ABN Amro and has appealed. Both setbacks came on procedural grounds rather than on the substance of the complaints.
Epic’s statement didn’t say whether it will take up SMC’s offer to negotiate, and until it does, the €100 million figure remains SMC’s opening demand rather than anything a court has ordered.
