Fortnite maker Epic Games is suing two Michigan men, Idris Nahdi and Ayob Nasser, for allegedly abusing the Fortnite Island Creator program by artificially inflating engagement on their creations.
The company’s lawyers allege in a complaint filed Tuesday in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan that Nahdi and Nasser created and deployed “fake ‘bot’ player accounts to simulate real hum Fortnite engagement on their islands.” In doing so, lawyers write, the two men earned “tens of thousands of dollars in unwarranted payouts.”
“We are taking legal action against two UEFN developers who used bots to inflate their player counts,” an Epic Games spokesperson told Aftermath. “We also took down their islands and they are banned from Fortnite. Manipulating player engagement breaks our rules and will not be tolerated.”
Fortnite user-generated content creators earn money from their creations with payouts related to engagement. People who create Islands in Fortnite—akin to Experiences in Roblox—earn money from a pool of money made up of 40% of revenue from Fortnite's Item Shop “and related real-money purchases.”
That pool of money is divided up and distributed based on two factors: player popularity and player retention. The exact details of how the distribution is calculated isn’t public, but Epic Games’ lawyers say in the lawsuit that active players, active playtime, and returning players (“among other stats”) play into the calculation. Soon, Fortnite developers will be able to sell items from their Fortnite Islands to earn additional revenue, but that hasn’t been rolled out yet. Currently, engagement is the only way to earn money from Fortnite.
“Before they got caught, Defendants were paid tens of thousands of dollars in unearned payments from Epic that would otherwise have been paid out to other developers who earned genuine engagement from real Fortnite players,” lawyers wrote in the complaint, which has been reviewed by Aftermath. “Epic has also spent substantial resources investigating Defendants’ conduct and working to implement safeguards against unearned payments.”
Both Nahdi and Nasser entered the program months apart in December 2023 and March 2024, respectively, Epic Games’ lawyers say. They created multiple accounts with “inaccurate or incomplete personal information” to “create and publish a small number of Fortnite Islands.”
The multiple islands were a “scheme” to “disguise” the fake engagement, lawyers say. Between December 2024 and February 2025, Nahdi and Nasser created more than 20,000 fake bot accounts, according to the complaint.
“Defendants programmed the bot accounts to engage with Defendants’ own Fortnite Islands by using a cloud gaming service that allows users to play video games, like Fortnite, remotely,” lawyers say.
The fake bot accounts accounted for 90% of visitors to the islands Nahdi and Nasser created—and they only engaged with their Islands, lawyers say. Epic Games started to get suspicious after Nahdi and Nasser were paid out for December 2024, finding that nine out of 10 Islands created by the two were populated by 80% to 99% of engagement. Epic Games began immediately withholding portions of the engagement payments "attributable to the artificial engagement in January and February 2025.”
Epic Games’ lawyers say that the fake account activity dropped after Epic Games withheld payment, “indicating the Defendants were aware their scheme had been detected.”
Epic Games is suing over breach of contract, copyright infringement, and fraud. It wants the court to forbid Nahdi and Nasser from accessing Fortnite or any server owned by Epic Games and award damages.
Epic Games has been ramping up its efforts to punish people who cheat in Fortnite in the past few years; the company has pursued legal action against alleged cheaters recently. One Fortnite esports player who was caught cheating was forced to publicly apologize this year and had their prize money donated to charity. Another player lost a $175,000 lawsuit in June 2025 for cheating during Fortnite tournaments.
