Epic, who just laid off almost 900 employees because as CEO Tim Sweeney said, they’re “spending way more money than they earn,” is now trying to make up revenue in other ways. No, they’re not aborting their endless lawsuits against Google and Apple nor are they shutting down the cash-burning Epic Games Store. Rather, they’re increasing Fortnite V-Bucks prices, citing “inflation” as the primary reason.
This price increase does not happen until October, but it is not a “trial” that is happening outside the US, the US is indeed including in the list of countries it affects, Czech Republic, Denmark, Eurozone countries, Hungary, Japan, Norway, Poland, Romania, Sweden, Turkey, and the United States. Previously, increases already occurred in the UK, Canada and Mexico.
So, how much are prices going up?
- 1,000 V-Bucks for $8.99, up from $7.99
- 2,800 V-Bucks for $22.99, up from $19.99
- 5,000 V-bucks for $36.99, up from $31.99
- 13,500 V-bucks for $89.99, up from $79.99
Other countries are in a chart you can see here.
This won’t change Fortnite Crew prices, but a number of packs are having their prices increased when they return in rotation: The Final Reckoning Pack, Skull Squad Pack, Graveyard Drift Quest Pack, Saint Academy Quest Pack, Transformers Pack.
This should not affect the ability to earn enough V-Bucks within a battle pass to purchase a new battle pass the next time, but I’m not sure how long for this world that process may be. Epic specifically said that Fortnite Creative was now producing slimmer profits than base Fortnite, so no doubt they want base battle royale Fortnite to generate more money, despite not being as popular as it once was. Hence these increases, which are about 12-15% across all the board for all these bundles of V-Bucks. Inflation indeed.
It remains to be see if Epic can find longterm stability when it comes to Fortnite, its main gaming cash cow, though Unreal Engine 5 itself is certainly poised to be the new industry standard. Though as ever it does not seem like Tim Sweeney himself has been steering the ship in a good direction with his ideological crusades, and his firing of hundreds of workers, seemingly without taking any sort of cut himself. And through all this, he maintains he’s still pursuing the metaverse, a concept practically everyone, even Meta, has shied away from in the past year or two, the buzzword ceasing to mean much at all. We’ll see where Epic’s future lies.
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