Inflation has hit consumers far and wide, boosting the prices of a vast array of everyday expenses. And Fortnite fans are about to feel the added pinch in their wallet, too.
Epic Games announced this week that it will boost the price of V-Bucks, Fortnite’s virtual in-game currency. V-Bucks are used to purchase cosmetic items like character and weapon skins, and while they’re purely cosmetic, Epic has raked in billions of dollars’ on V-Bucks bundles as it sells licensed skins from Marvel, the NFL, and other brands.
V-Buck bundles will become more expensive in the United States and several other locales—including Eurozone countries, Japan, Sweden, and Poland—starting on October 27.
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“These adjustments are based on economic factors such as inflation and currency fluctuations,” Epic noted in a blog post, stating that it also recently boosted prices across the United Kingdom, Canada, and Mexico.
How severe are the price bumps? It depends on how many V-Bucks you’re buying. In the United States, a basic bundle of 800 V-Bucks will rise from the current price of $7.99 to $8.99 in a month, while the heftiest pack of 13,500 V-Bucks will jump from the current $79.99 to $89.99.
A full breakdown of updated prices across bundles and countries is available via the Fortnite blog.
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Epic Games, creator of battle royale shooter smash Fortnite and the Unreal Engine development platform, is laying off roughly 16% of its staff, CEO Tim Sweeney confirmed in an email republished as a blog post Thursday. Approximately 830 employees are affected, with two-thirds of that number being in departments outside of Epic’s core development teams. Bloomberg first reported the news Thursday ahead of the posting. “For a while now, we've been spending way more money than we earn,” Sweeney wrot...
The latest Fortnite price bumps were announced hours before Epic Games confirmed large-scale layoffs today, laying off 830 people—about 16% of its headcount. The company, valued at $31.5 billion at its last fundraise in 2022, also divested from two companies it had previously acquired, shedding another 250 employees in the process.
