Mentioned in this article Games: Fortnite

More than 1,200 players were caught cheating during the first week of Fortnite World Cup qualifiers, including 200+ prize winners.

Penalized prize winners have forfeited their winnings, and must also serve any in-game bans levied by Epic Games.

Each of the 10 weeks of qualifiers has a $1M USD prize pool, with $30M to be awarded at the finals in World Cup finals in July.

The Fortnite World Cup has a lot of money at stake, with $30M to be awarded at the finals and $1M awarded per week across 10 weeks of qualifiers. It also has, according to Epic Games , a lot of players circumventing the rules to try and take home a share of that enormous prize pool.

On Friday, Epic disclosed that more than 1,200 player accounts had been penalized during the first week of Fortnite World Cup qualifiers due to various infractions, and that more than 200 of those players had won prizes during the competition. Those prizes have been forfeited.

Most of the players—1,163 in total—were penalized for circumventing region locks to compete in multiple regions, with 196 of those players winning prizes along the way. All of those accounts will be banned from competitive play for 14 days.

Additionally, 48 accounts were banned for 14 days for account sharing, with nine of those players winning prizes, and eight accounts (including one prize winner) were banned for teaming up in the solo queue. One account was also banned for intentionally disconnecting from a game as to not give points to a competitor.

Related Article: Fortnite World Cup to Include $3M Creative Competition

Perhaps the most egregious example of cheating came from one player who used cheat software during the semi-finals. According to Epic Games, that account competed for less than five minutes before being detected, and it has been permanently banned from Fortnite.

The Fortnite World Cup finals will take place in New York City from July 26-28, with $30M up for grabs in the battle royale competitions, including $3M for the winner of the Solo competition. Additionally, Epic Games will hold a $3M Creative mode competition at the event.