Two hundred Fortnite World Cup cheaters have prizes taken away after sting catches 1,200
EPIC Games has found 1,200 cheats in the competitive rounds of the first week of the Fortnite World Cup.
206 of the 5,250 prize winners were hit a ban, and had to forfeit their share of the £770,000 that was up for grabs in the first week.
There are ten weeks of qualifiers for the big tournament in New York that's coming up this summer, with a total of £30million up for grabs for the top Fortnite players from around the world.
A blog post from Epic revealed that most of the bans were from people trying to enter in multiple regions to boost their own chances of getting through.
Spots in the finals have been allocated for different areas across the world, with different qualifying tournaments for each of those regions.
In week one there were 19 spots in the finals available -- 8 for Europe, 8 for North America (split into East and West), and one each for Asia (excluding China), Brazil and Oceania.
To get into the qualifier proper and have a shot at qualifying for the World Cup in New York you need to place in the top 3,000 point earners for that region in the semifinals.
So as well as players in regions with fewer spots thinking they might have a better chance getting into the finals through a larger region, players in larger regions might prefer their odds of getting into the top 3,000 in a region with fewer players, and trying their luck from there.
As well as the 1163 accounts banned for 14 days for playing in multiple regions, 48 were banned for "account sharing". This involves multiple people using the same login details to play as the same person, and could be used to get a better player to play as you to help you qualify before you then take over later on.
8 accounts were banned for "teaming" -- co-ordinating with other players in Solo matches to gain an unfair advantage.
The most heinous offender was banned for life after being found using cheat software; Epic claimed this software was detected within five minutes of the player in question joining the end.
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Finally, one player was banned for quitting -- it was decided he had quit specifically to avoid giving points to another competitor.
While Epic did reveal the total number of prize winners who had been disqualified, they did not disclose their placements.
The prize amounts were then recalculated based on the results with the cheaters removed, though the online leaderboards have not been updated to reflect this change.
The news comes as Epic teases a new Avengers' crossover for the games more casual fans, and as it is revealed that the game seems to have peaked and now be on a decline.
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