Fortnite and Monero partnership was “accidental”, says Epic Games CEO

Recent reports confirming that popular video game Fortnite had begun accepting Monero as a payment option have proven premature, with the CEO of Epic Games now taking to Twitter to claim the partnership was “accidental.”

Fortnite is a battle royale game developed by Epic Games. It has been hugely popular since its launch back in 2017, and has opened a merchandise store where people can buy t-shirts and other items. On Twitter, Fortnite currently has over 6.6 million followers.

On January 1st 2019, many rumours were circulating that Fortnite had begun accepting Monero as a payment option for their merchandise store.

This was then “confirmed” by Riccardo Spagni, a developer at Monero. Spagni noted at the time, “Now you can purchase that sweet Durrr Burger onesie without your friends / family / coworkers judging you.”

It was thought that the Monero payments would be powered by GloBee, a crypto-friendly payment processor.

However, this news has since been refuted by Tim Sweeney, CEO and founder of Epic Games, who claims the entire ordeal was “accidental.”

Sweeney took to Twitter to state: “Actually, Fortnite’s brief foray into crypto was accidental. We worked with a partner to open a merchandise store, and somewhere along the way Monero payment was enabled.”

The CEO continues to explain his reasons for why it was never meant to be, revealing: “Many of us at Epic are big fans of the decentralised computing tech underlying cryptocurrency, however a lot more work is needed on volatility and fraud-proofing before bringing it to such a broad audience that includes younger gamers.”

Sweeney also commented in a third tweet that Epic Games are currently not in discussion with anyone regarding a “crypto partnership.”

It now remains to be seen whether any further integration of crypto payments will be implemented into the Fortnite merchandise store, or whether this incident was an isolated accident.

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