Mina Aoyama Says Fortnite Banned Her for a Year for Cheating, Then Clears Star Rail Endgame

INDEPENDENT — Mina Aoyama, an independent streamer on Twitch, told viewers on Monday that her Fortnite account had been banned for cheating, a penalty she said runs a full year, 365 days. She said she learned of it that morning after an email she took for a scam sent her to open the game, where a ban notice was waiting.

Aoyama said she had not played in a week and that her last session was on stream, where viewers could see she was not cheating. She said she would not know how to install cheats, and floated explanations: a teammate in random matchmaking, a streaming tool with “bot” in its name, or simply being too good after winning three Victory Royales in a row. She said she had appealed, tweeted about it and might ask her agency whether it has a contact at Epic, adding that she had sent the agency a message on Discord.

“I’m sorry, I’m a VTuber. You think I’m tech savvy enough to download cheats?” — Mina Aoyama, on her Fortnite ban

She also took a stance on cheating. “I’m spiteful but not evil,” she said, and argued that winning by cheating gives no sense of accomplishment. The rest of the stream was Honkai: Star Rail. She worked through endgame content, including a boss fight where she said a damage-over-time team let her clear in a single cycle, and in a pulling session realized a character she had drawn had never been leveled up.

She finished the week’s endgame content and ended earlier than planned, saying she had mainly wanted to vent about the ban. On the next day’s Star Rail update she said she would pull for Aha, and she planned to start the story on Thursday to give viewers 48 hours to play it first. Most of November, she said, would probably go to Currency Wars.

Chat joked about the ban throughout, from “RIP” messages to suggestions that she sue.