Update on Island Impersonation

5.19.2021
The Fortnite Team

Hey everyone,

We’ve seen a lot of discussions and claims around creators copying other creator’s islands/ideas/games. We’re taking some time in this post to discuss what is considered innovating on an existing game/idea versus a malicious or deceptive mirror of someone else’s creation. The two examples we are talking about here are...

The difference between making a map because it is a popular game mode and innovating on the existing genre to draw in players and build your own community. 

AND

Using a popular map’s same exact name/iconography/images/thumbnails/videos to trick players into visiting your island, where they think they are playing the original map and not a new one. 

We actually already have a rule against this here

 

Give Credit Where It’s Due - On your Hub Island, do not try to take credit for content that you link to that you didn’t create. Don’t impersonate other users, streamers, celebrities, government officials, Epic employees, or anyone else. And don’t take credit for another user’s creation. Pretending to be someone else in order to deceive or defraud others is not okay.

 

but felt it needed further clarification

What is NOT okay:

  • Use of identical imagery/screenshots/video utilized to promote other games or Islands.
  • Using the exact same name as a popular game in an attempt to gain players and visibility.
  Example:

    
Island Name #1: Funk Ops Impossible Escape PvE Experience
Code: 111-222-333-444       


Island Name #2: Funk Ops Impossible Escape PvE Experience
                                                    Code: 222-333-444-555                                                            

NOT OKAY

And we will take action anywhere from disabling the Island code and removal from SAC all the way up to an account ban for repeated infractions.

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What is okay, innovating. 

What that means is taking an existing popular game type and adjusting or tweaking it in some way. Generally, this is done with the goal of potentially attracting new players on top of the existing ones who enjoy that mode. We believe this creates the space for this innovation to occur while providing clearer boundaries when it comes to islands that could be deceptive in nature.