The Real Reason Fortnite Punished FaZe Sway

FaZe Clan can't stay out of the news lately, mainly due to its involvement in the Save The Kids cryptocurrency scam, a situation that seems to keep getting worse. That incident led to internal reprimands as FaZe Clan fired FaZe Kay and placed Nikan, Jarvis, and Teeqo on suspension. Now, FaZe Sway has been punished for a separate offense by having his "Fortnite" creator code revoked.

FaZe Sway shared the news that "Fortnite" had shut down his creator code in a tweet posted on July 20. Losing a creator code isn't necessarily the worst punishment that Epic Games can hand down, but it may represent a significant loss of income for FaZe Sway, as the codes offer a way of making money outside of streaming. Essentially, when a player has a creator code, they can give that to their fans who type it in when they buy V-Bucks, giving the creator a portion of the revenue from those sales.

When FaZe Sway posted the announcement, he didn't offer many details. The snippet from the official communication with Epic Games that accompanied the tweet did not shed much light either. Fans soon began to speculate that the issue might have been FaZe Sway's history of supposedly inappropriate tweets, but the streamer soon speculated about the issue at hand. Here is the real reason "Fortnite" punished FaZe Sway — or at least his side of the story.

FaZe Sway put some of the speculation to rest when he tweeted out a straightforward explanation of what had happened. His creator code was allegedly suspended due to his participation in account sharing. FaZe Sway even elaborated on how he violated that item in the terms of service, stating that he had been "going on viewers accounts and getting them to champs."

This is far from the first time "Fortnite" has penalized players for account sharing. During the World Cup Online Open, 48 players were banned for 14 days for account sharing. A creator such as FaZe Sway, who receives money directly from the game, is expected to act as an ambassador for proper "Fortnite" behavior to his audience. Taking over fan accounts and "getting them to champs" not only helps players level up faster and bypass monetization aspects of the "Fortnite" grind but may normalize the behavior for viewers.

FaZe Sway seemed to take his punishment in stride. After revealing that his creator code had been disabled, he tweeted that he "lowkey needed this as a wake up call," and in a later Twitch stream stated that he didn't really care about the issue. This may be because Epic Games' description of the creator code cautions participants to "expect modest results" or because the punishment could have been more severe — he wasn't banned, after all.