Epic Games has filed court documents seeking to ban not just the Fortnite players profiteering from misconduct, but also their family members' accounts.

At the heart of the matter are Idris Nahdi and Ayob Nasser, two individuals based in Michigan, USA. They allegedly exploited Fortnite's creator ecosystem—where higher traffic to user-made mods equals a bigger payout—by flooding their custom mods with approximately 20,000 bot accounts disguised as real players.

Once Epic Games caught wind of this, they suspended Nahdi and Nasser's accounts and ordered the removal of all bot accounts. Naturally, the pair ignored the warning and kept right on playing. Now, Epic is taking the gloves off, seeking to claw back the ill-gotten gains and petitioning the court to permanently ban the accounts of their heirs, successors, and blood relatives.

The legal filing explicitly states that "Idris Nahdi and Ayob Nasser, their agents, heirs, and successors are permanently barred from creating Epic Games accounts." Furthermore, it mandates that any attempts to infringe upon Epic's copyright, induce others to do so, or even connect to their servers will be blocked.

While IP and hardware bans are common tools developers use to indirectly penalize those sharing a household, this direct strike at family-linked accounts is quite extraordinary. Epic argues this is a necessary firewall to prevent the duo from simply hopping onto relatives' accounts to continue their scheme. Critics, however, argue that punishing innocent family members through a form of collective guilt is a bridge too far. It remains to be seen how the court will rule on this rather draconian approach.