Fortnite "Permission To Play" And "Play Access" Login Issues Lit Up

This afternoon Fortnite experienced some issues. Messages such as "you do not have permission to play Fortnite" or "Your account no longer has play access to Fortnite" appeared for a significant number of gamers throughout the day. Epic Games suggested that these messages did not indicate that any individual player was banned – though this issue did not necessarily mean that any banned player was reinstated as such.

Epic Games support – via Fortnite Status on Twitter – suggested that they were investigating issues with the game this afternoon. Issues were "related to kicks and logins," per Epic Games support. They suggested that they'll "provide an update when these are resolved."

UPDATE: Fortnite was taken offline this afternoon at around 3:20 PM Central Time. Epic Games suggested that as they work on the issues suggested above, they have "entered server downtime." That means they have to take their ball and go home because somebody got gum on it, and they need to clean the gum off before anyone can play with the ball again, later.

UPDATE 2: Epic Games issued an update at 30:32 UTC saying that... "We are continuing to address this issue." This is the sort of late-breaking update that makes one really appreciate how ravenous some gamers can be when it comes to their own most favorite and utterly all-encompassing, life-consuming game. We can safely bet we'll get another "continuing to address" updates every once in a while until said issues are fixed.

This login issue MAY have to do with the confusion launched earlier this month with Apple account logins, as some players have suggested this afternoon, but no evidence has been made public with related details. We'll let you know what Epic says this afternoon as they (hopefully) resolve these issues with all speed.