Epic Games announced this week FortniteThe in-game V-Bucks currency will become more expensive with a somewhat obvious statement: “Running costs.” Fortnite “The increases are too steep and we are raising prices to help pay the bills,” the company wrote. The price increases will take effect March 19, the same day as the next major Fortnite The season began, and enough users have complained about the increase that an Epic employee acknowledged the protest in a post on Reddit.
but when The Verge When Epic executives were asked at the GDC Festival of Gaming this week if they could get specific about why the company raised the price, they didn’t say much more than that.
“I think what we put out publicly is pretty accurate,” explains Andre Balta, Epic’s senior director of ecosystem development. The Verge. “It’s the pure operating cost of running a business, and that was the main push. We, as a business, will continue to focus on creating amazing games and gameplay, but the price increase is a direct correlation to the operating costs.” Balta declined to put a percentage or dollar value on how those operating costs have changed.
Right now, $8.99 gets you a pack of 1,000 V-Bucks, but after the change, the same price will get you only 800 V-Bucks. Other V-Bucks packs will also offer smaller amounts of V-Bucks for their same pack prices. Epic last increased the price of V-Bucks in 2023.
“We’re investing heavily in growing the ecosystem,” says Steve Allison, GM of the Epic Games Store. He says there are a lot of “surprising things that will come out in the next, like, 6 to 12 months, I think, when you look back, you’ll understand what’s going on.”
<a href