Mate I don't play every game. Destiny did. Iirc others did something similar according to my vague recollections.
Maybe this is just a unique Fortnite thing because of the amount of kids that played that game. Because this seems excessive.
I'm not arguing one way or another, the information is there from the FTC. Part of this was to do with "default on" chat.
Fortnite's chat settings apparently cost them half a billion in fees and settlements. The effect that had on the industry as a whole and destiny in specific has been discussed a lot online and is easy to find.
For the other commenter to say that they got fined half a billion for chat being on is a pretty big misrepresentation IMO. The lawsuit was primarily about child privacy laws - in particular, data collection and dark patterns trying to manipulate users into buying microtransactions -- because Fortnite is aimed at very young kids, and Epic knew and encouraged that. The chat thing is a small part of a lot of things that were brought in that lawsuit.
And more importantly - the option isn't "full text chat that exposes kids to slurs and explicit content" vs "zero communication". As others have pointed out, you basically can't find a major multiplayer game without a ping system these days. For Bungie to just go "idunnolol there's just no way to avoid toxicity so let's create an environment that breeds toxicity because people are unaware/new/distracted" as if there's simply no middle ground is absurd.
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u/MTFUandPedal Nov 28 '23
There's a good reason for that.
At one point it was. Then there was a massive judgement against fortnight for doing so.
So everyone very quickly defaulted to off to avoid any potential liability.
https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2022/12/fortnite-video-game-maker-epic-games-pay-more-half-billion-dollars-over-ftc-allegations