By Eric Henn/July 7, 2020 9:38 am EDT
Love it or hate it, Fortnite is one of the biggest games in the world. With events that attract tens of millions of fans, it's no surprise that a lot of professional streamers and competitive gamers have jumped on the flying bus to try to make their marks on this battle royale titan.
Any game with that many fans is bound to have some bad eggs, though, and anyone who spends enough time playing is bound to slip up sooner or later. Whether because of actual cheating, a moment's poor judgment, or simple age restrictions, many players have found themselves on the wrong end of the Epic Games banhammer. For some of those players, it wasn't much more than an inconvenience, or at worst a minor setback. For others who had made their names and their careers playing Fortnite, a ban was a devastating blow.
Let's take a look at some players who caught the business end of a ban, and what they've been doing since.
FaZe Jarvis
FaZe Clan's Jarvis got a lifetime ban from Fortnite after uploading a video in which he admitted to using an aimbot, a program that helps players shoot with perfect accuracy. The heavy punishment sparked a debate over whether Epic had gone too far; especially since, as fellow streamer Ninja pointed out, it took away Jarvis's means of making a living. Others, including Epic itself, said Jarvis should have known better and have defended the decision. For now, the ban is still in effect and Epic seems to be showing no signs of backing down.
So what has the former Fortnite streamer been up to since then? Mostly playing Minecraft and doing silly YouTube challenges. Despite Ninja's concerns, Jarvis losing the bread and butter of his streaming career doesn't seem to have slowed him down much. His Twitch channel still boasts 638,000 followers, and his YouTube videos regularly rack up millions of views. It's worth noting, however, that following his ban, Jarvis left the FaZe Clan's shared house in Hollywood Hills and moved back in with his mother—which isn't as bad as it sounds. She has an impressive property worth an estimated $1.7 million herself.
Zenon
Zenon is something of a unique story among players banned from Fortnite in that he didn't do anything wrong, except for playing the game in the first place.
Zenon is, quite simply, a prodigy. He got into the Fortnite Championship Series qualifiers at the ripe old age of nine. Unfortunately, what should have been a huge accomplishment turned into a huge heartbreak, when he was suddenly and unceremoniously locked out of his account mid-stream. Zenon was then informed that he was banned from competitive Fortnite for 1,459 days — in other words, until he turns 13.
Ninja — one of the biggest voices in the Fortnite community – weighed in on this ban, too. He wasn't the only one; thousands of gamers united behind the young streamer and got #FreeZenon trending. Epic Games, however, didn't budge. Fortnite's terms state that you have to be 13 to compete, and that's the end of it as far as Epic is concerned.
If there's a silver lining here, it's that Zenon wasn't really in it for the competitions and the money. He just loves playing and streaming, and he's still doing it. He just has to stick to casual modes until he's old enough.
Slackes, Keys, Kreo, and Bucke
In the video, ej (ejlad on youtube) provided several proofs that support his claims. Tracy trouble steals our hearts. The fortnite pro starts off by expressing concerns about his future in gaming scene.
Some cheaters aren't quite as clever as they think. During one match in the Fortnite Championship series, the two top-ranked duos — Slackes and Keys, and Kreo and Bucke — were all caught in a Storm Surge. Storm Surge is a Fortnite mechanic designed to prevent players from hiding out for too long. If too many players are left at certain points in the match, Storm Surge will activate and hurt the players with the lowest damage counts in that match.
By trading shots with each other, the four players were hoping to stay above that threshold and survive the Storm Surge without putting themselves in any real danger. But Epic was watching this little strategy play out, and quickly responded by handing each player a two-month ban. As it turns out, working with the enemy in Fortnite is a no-no.
All four players stayed pretty quiet during their bans. Other than some "just chatting" streams, they weren't putting out much content on their channels. Their bans have since expired, however, and all of them are now back to playing Fortnite.
Kquid
In another instance of someone (allegedly) using an aimbot to cheat, 14-year-old Fortnite pro Kquid was slapped with a ban in the middle of a tournament. Kquid himself claimed not to know why it had happened. His fans were equally confused, as well. It wasn't until another YouTuber named SerpentAU claimed that Kquid had been using an aimbot — and gave his evidence for saying so — that fans had any kind of explanation to work with.
Still, there's been no official statement from either Epic or Kquid about exactly why he was banned, or even how long it's supposed to last. The last definite thing we heard from Kquid was that he was in contact with the Fortnite developer, and he's holding off on posting about the situation until he gets an answer. Apparently that answer has been pretty slow in coming. Both Kquid's YouTube channel and his Twitter account have been silent since May 2020, and if Epic follows the example it set with Jarvis, it could be a very, very long time before we hear from Kquid again.
Tfue
Sean Drakes/Getty Images
Seeing Tfue's name on a list of gamers who got in trouble is probably not surprising. After all, even before getting his Epic account permanently banned, the streamer's career had been littered with controversies and lawsuits. However, what got Epic to bring the hammer down permanently was Tfue's alleged buying and selling of Fortnite accounts, something that is strictly against the game's terms of service.
Unlike some others on this list, Tfue's ban didn't hurt his career, or even seem to bother him much. He's still streaming Fortnite using a different Epic account (which seems to defeat the purpose of a ban), meaning all Tfue really lost from this ordeal is his premium skins. There's no way of knowing exactly how many of those skins he had and how much they were worth, but Tfue doesn't seem to be too worried about them. He told his fans in a short Q&A session that he doesn't care about skins anymore, and he's fine with just using standard ones.
Whether that's true or he's just saving face is anyone's guess, but it doesn't change the fact that Tfue got right back in the saddle and kept on playing Fortnite.
Golden Modz
A permanent ban might seem harsh, but it's nothing compared to what happened to this YouTuber.
Golden Modz, living up to his name, regularly created content for his YouTube channel that showed off cheats and hacks for Fortnite. Epic tried sending takedown orders to YouTube, but Golden Modz pushed back. The issue ended up in court, with Golden and Epic eventually settling after some back-and-forth legalese. It's not known whether any money changed hands, but Golden Modz was hit with an injunction preventing him from ever developing, advertising, showing off, or linking to any cheating software for any of Epic's games.
That seemed like a pretty fair resolution and a good ending all around, but Golden Modz's troubles didn't stop there. In June 2020, he posted a tweet saying that his YouTube channel had been terminated (for reasons unrelated to the previous lawsuit). He had been promoting his secondary channel to try getting it monetized, but that was eventually taken down as well. Now no one's quite sure what he's up to. Ever since his last Tweet on June 22 explaining what the channel termination was for, his Twitter account has remained silent.
FunkBomb and Nate Hill
What happens if you cheat by accident? That's the situation FunkBomb and Nate Hill found themselves in. During a Fall Skirmish event, FunkBomb — who had already died — mentioned a nearby enemy with low health, seemingly unaware that there was no delay in the stream he was watching and the event itself. Nate quickly took advantage of the info and sniped the enemy for an easy kill, with Funk saying it "...feels like cheating."
Apparently, Epic agreed. FunkBomb was banned from ever competing in Fall Skirmish events again, while Nate was suspended from them for a few weeks. This was a fairly light punishment (for a fairly minor violation), as both players could still compete in other tournaments, just not the Fall Skirmish. FunkBomb was able to enter the TwitchCon tournament just a month later. Despite that, he made a public apology on Twitter after the Fall Skirmish incident, saying that he realized he'd made a mistake and took full responsibility for it.
Predictably, a slap on the wrist for an understandable mistake wasn't enough to derail either player's Fortnite career. Both FunkBomb and Nate are still regularly playing and streaming the world's biggest battle royale shooter.
EJLad
EJLad, a cantankerous YouTuber and Fortnite streamer, was hit with not just an account ban but a hardware ban. The bans came after he was caught using a cheat to widen his field of view, which would give him an edge over his opponents if used in competitive modes. As with KQuid, the YouTuber SerpentAU was credited for "exposing" the cheat EJLad was using. EJLad went into detail about the ban in his video "Why I Got Banned From Fortnite," which went up on his channel in November 2019.
If Epic thought that banning both his account and his computer would stop EJLad, though, they were sorely mistaken. EJLad continued making Fortnite content, though shortly after his ban, he started adding Call of Duty: Warzone to the mix. He also posted a few videos where, instead of playing, he just talked (unfavorably) about Epic and other Fortnite players. He kept this up until April 2020, when he posted the video "I Quit... (not clickbait)," formally announcing that he was done with Fortnite.
The title may not have been intended as clickbait, but it wasn't totally accurate, either. Only a month later EJLad posted "I'm Back On Fortnite..." which was pretty self-explanatory.
SerpentAU
Turnabout is fair play, right? On May 31, 2020, around eight months after his own ban, EJLad uploaded a video titled, "I Have To Expose A Fortnite Macro Cheater." Macros are another type of cheating software. They allow multiple commands to be bound to a single keystroke, enabling players to perform complex actions perfectly and inhumanly quickly. The person EJLad was "exposing" for using them turned out to be SerpentAU, who himself exposed many Fortnite cheaters.
A week later, SerpentAU uploaded a video response to the accusations. He admitted to having used macros in the past, but insisted that he hadn't done so recently. Time didn't seem to matter to Epic Games, though. A week and a half later on June 17, 2020, SerpentAU announced that he had been banned from Fortnite.
As of this article's publication, Serpent has remained relatively silent. The last video uploaded to his channel is the response to EJLad's accusation, and his Twitter account gives no clues as to what his future plans are. His latest tweet promises to delete his Youtube account if it gets more than 15,000 likes, which it has, but he hasn't followed through yet. What he'll do next remains to be seen.