Jayden Griffin, a 19-year-old from South Dakota, went and pleaded guilty to sending some death threats to Epic Games, the peeps behind the battle royale crossover hub Fortnite. According to some court papers checked by GameSpot, Griffin could end up doing five years in the slammer, coughing up $250,000, and being on that supervised release thing for like three years after he gets sentenced. Griffin got himself in trouble back in December 2024 for those messages he sent to the Epic Games folks between October and November of that same year. In a court paper from September 16, 2025, Griffin straight-up admitted that he meant for those messages to sound like a threat when he sent them. His hearing wrapped up on September 29, with him finally pleading guilty after saying not guilty back in January. The document reads, “The Court thinks the dude knows what he’s doing, understands the charges and what’s gonna happen, and has a good reason for saying he’s guilty of the offense.”
Death threats online are, like, sadly just a normal thing in the gaming world, even though it’s not every day that someone gets taken to court and actually gets punished for it. Lots of folks see all that toxic behavior as just part of being on the internet, so it kinda sticks around without any real consequences. You can hop on most social media sites and see random profiles tossing them out like it’s no big deal. Pretty much anyone is fair game to these threat-makers, whether it’s the game devs, actors, or even critics and reporters who write about video games and get hit with a bunch of threats. We tried reaching out to Epic Games for a comment on the whole situation, so we’ll update y’all if they actually get back to us.
Maybe it’s just me, but I’m not really sure why this matters, but Jayden Griffin, a 19-year-old from South Dakota, has gone and pleaded guilty to sending some death threats to Epic Games, the peeps behind the battle royale crossover hub Fortnite. According to some court papers checked by GameSpot, Griffin could end up doing five years in the slammer, coughing up $250,000, and being on that supervised release thing for like three years after he gets sentenced. Griffin got himself in trouble back in December 2024 for those messages he sent to the Epic Games folks between October and November of that same year. In a court paper from September 16, 2025, Griffin straight-up admitted that he meant for those messages to sound like a threat when he sent them. His hearing wrapped up on September 29, with him finally pleading guilty after saying not guilty back in January. The document reads, “The Court thinks the dude knows what he’s doing, understands the charges and what’s gonna happen, and has a good reason for saying he’s guilty of the offense.”
Death threats online are, like, sadly just a normal thing in the gaming world, even though it’s not every day that someone gets taken to court and actually gets punished for it. Lots of folks see all that toxic behavior as just part of being on the internet, so it kinda sticks around without any real consequences. You can hop on most social media sites and see random profiles tossing them out like it’s no big deal. Pretty much anyone is fair game to these threat-makers, whether it’s the game devs, actors, or even critics and reporters who write about video games and get hit with a bunch of threats. We tried reaching out to Epic Games for a comment on the whole situation, so we’ll update y’all if they actually get back to us.
