Fortnite is hiking cost of its currency to 'pay the bills.' Are its battles against Google and Apple to blame?

The pop online gaming program Fortnite is hiking the damage of its in-game currency starting th, a rarefied move that experts say sheds some light on the cost of its parent company's antitrust battles against tech giants Google and Apple.

"The cost of running Fortnite has gone up a lot and we’re raising prices to help pay the bills," a March 10 statement on the game's website said.

While the game itself is free to play, Fortnite makes money from in-game purchases — including its signature "V-Bucks," a currency that players can use to buy new "skins" or other status symbols.

For years, Epic has waged antitrust battles against Google and Apple, accusing them of anti-competitive behaviour by taxing developers with a commission on in-app purchases, sometimes up to 30 per cent.

Fortnite was swiftly removed from both the Google Play Store and Apple's App Store when Epic attempted to bypass the tax in 2020.

Google eventually lowered its fees in a major settlement and opened itself up to competitors, including the Epic Games store, potentially helping Epic offset some legal costs.

The case against Apple is still ongoing. A judge initially ruled in 2021 that it can charge a non-prohibitive fee if its link to alternative payment methods, but found in 2025 that the company violated her order. Apple then lost its appeal of that decision.

Epic Games has "done a big favour for the whole industry by fighting these antitrust cases for six years, losing all of the [potential] revenue for Fortnite on mobile during that time," said Dean Takahashi, editorial director at GamesBeat, a gaming news outlet.

It might take some time for the company to re-establish a consumer base on mobile platforms after such a long absence, he added.

As for the prices changes, "they're just sort of giving you less for the money you are giving them, right? Perhaps that's the correct way to do this without angering too many people," Takahashi said.

Fortnite last hiked global prices in 2023 and 2021.

Stephen Totilo, a reporter who covers the gaming industry through his Game File newsletter, pointed out that it's difficult to say definitively whether or why Epic Games, a private company, might be hurting financially.

It's estimated that Fortnite generates billions in annual revenue, though that number appears to have been falling between 2021 and 2023.

"Even when people are playing Fortnite, they don't have to spend money in it, so it's even harder to say if players are going for more of a free ride these days," Totilo added.

It's unlikely a price hike will see gamers give up on Fortnite, said Ash Parrish, a video game journalist in in Akron, Ohio.

Fortnite, Roblox and Minecraft are part of a category called "forever games," a term for games that can be played endlessly, rather than those that follow a narrative and linear structure with a clear end point.

That format is "incredibly resilient," Parrish said, partly because the games are designed with a social element and partly because younger users aren't spending on consoles like previous generations did.

"They don't have the money. They don't have the systems, and they also want to play where their friends are and — increasingly — their friends are on these forever games. So, even if the price goes up, you deal with it," Parrish said.

"I don't really foresee a big defection from the Fortnite product."

Fortnite Addiction

Fortnite's decision to devalue its currency rather than raise prices outright will probably lessen the blow for consumers — especially kids who won't have to ask their parents to spend more on games, said Alex Baudet, an assistant professor of marketing at Laval University in Quebec City.

But he says the pricing tactic appears to contradict Epic's David-and-Goliath framing of its battle against the tech giants.

"Does Fortnite really have to change its pricing to keep making money or to survive as a company? I'd love to see the numbers because right now, it's more about keeping or increasing profit margin than really surviving," added Baudet, who studies the impact of online gaming on families.

"If you fight for a cause, and at the end of the day, your entire argument has been that you're trying to protect players and make sure that you maximize the value for players, it's inconsistent to devalue whatever you're giving them," he said.

Takahashi, by contrast, thinks the gaming community will give Epic a pass on this one.

"There is a level of goodwill that gamers extend to games where they feel like they're not being over-monetized or they're not being targeted for extraction," said Takahashi.

"I don't necessarily think that Epic Games is a company that is easily targeted for being too greedy."

Journalist

---

---