I love the Vita. I think that’s pretty much understood by this point, as I’ve been writing about it for over three years. I also love free games. Who doesn’t? I even love battle royale games: I’ve often gushed and waxed lyrical about how good the mobile port of PUBG is, as well as being noob-friendly (important for me, a noob). So you’d think I’d be a fan of Fortnite. And that I’d be gutted it never made it to the Vita. Well, let me tell you: Fortnite not coming to Vita is a blessing in disguise, and I hope the game never does come to our beloved little handheld. Let me tell you why.
Part 1 of my sorry saga begin almost immediately after I created my Epic Games account when Fornite launched on the Nintendo Switch (my other main gaming platform). It did not take a day nor a rooster’s eye-blink for people to start trying to hack my Epic Games account. I kept receiving email after email telling me I’d been locked out of my account because of too many incorrect password attempts. Obviously, it wasn’t me. I’ve heard about companies offering a great sign up bonus before, but this was new to me.
This locked me out of even being able to set up two-factor authentication. I eventually did that, at the behest of Epic Games themselves, in an attempt to stop the hackers from accessing my account. They wouldn’t have been able to, my password was very secure, but they kept temporarily locking my account. It’s as if they were afraid of my mad FPS skills. Which I don’t have.
After only being able to play a single 10-second match before I got annihilated by a kid with too much time on his hands and, unlike me, no mortgage to pay, due to the wonderful and fair (see my sarcasm here) match-making system Fortnite has, I decided to end my misery and the onslaught of emails telling me someone’s been trying to hack my account. I decided to close my Epic Games account and delete Fortnite from my Switch.
That’s where Part 2 of my story begins. I call this part “I’m wearing white underpants! Now delete my account and leave me alone!”. The title is a work in progress.
You see, at the time that I contacted Epic Games to delete my account, you couldn’t just delete it. No, that’s not the PC Master Race way. There’s no “delete account” link on your account to be found (should you be able to access it in between spouts of people trying to hack it). You have to send in a request to have your account deleted.
Fine, I thought. I could have made some purchases and maybe they know people are trying to constantly hack other people’s accounts. So they’re making sure it’s me. Fine.
Well, not fine. Without wanting to bore you with the details, it took me almost a month (yes, that’s 28 to 31 days, depending on the month) to successfully have my account deleted. This included epic (ha) adventures such as the Customer Care representative asking me to verify the email address to which he was writing to me (meaning I had to have access to the email account anyway), to them sending me a 10-question questionnaire (no joke), asking me for details from the date I signed up, to whether I had purchased something impossible to pronounce recently.
When, in admitted frustration, I replied with all the details, with an added “My underwear is white. What else do you need to know?”, they finally deleted my account… a week later. That’s right: after submitting my information, I had to wait another WEEK of people trying to hack my account and access my payment information before they deleted my account.
Epic Games is one of the biggest companies in the industry right now, and yet they cannot delete an account in less than a month. But I guess it shouldn’t surprise me, since their login page doesn’t even feature a CAPTCHA to prevent brute-force login attempts. So, of course people are going to try and hack it.
And that’s why I’m happy that Fortnite never made it to the Vita: because if it had when, let’s say, I first started writing about the Vita three years ago, I would have had to deal with this whole debacle a full three years earlier. I know there are great entities out there offering a fantastic sign up bonus, but I never heard of that bonus being “hey, people will try to hack your account from day one and we’ll take a month to delete your account if you’re tired of people trying to steal your details”.
Do yourself a favor: play something else instead.
Facebook Comments