Fortnite is increasing the cost of its currency to ‘pay the bills’. Is its fight against Google and Apple to blame?

Popular online gaming platform Fortnite is raising the price of its in-game currency starting Thursday, a rare move that experts say sheds some light on the cost of its parent company’s antitrust battle against tech giants Google and Apple.

“The cost of running Fortnite has increased significantly and we are 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 purchase new “skins” or other status symbols.

The changes are global. If you’re in Canada, the company will start charging Same price for fewer V-Bucks — so, an $11.99 pack that used to buy 1,000 V-Bucks, for example, will now buy 800 V-Bucks, a spokesperson for parent company Epic Games told CBC News.

Over the years, it’s epic fought a battle of distrust Google and Apple were accused of anti-competitive behavior by taxing developers commissions on in-app purchases, sometimes as high as 30 percent.

When Epic attempted to bypass the tax in 2020, Fortnite was quickly removed from both the Google Play Store and Apple’s App Store.

Google finally reduced its fees in a big settlement and opened itself up to competitors, including the Epic Games Store, potentially helping Epic recoup some of the legal costs.

case against apple Still continuing. A judge initially ruled in 2021 that it could charge non-prohibitive fees if it linked to alternative payment methods, but found in 2025 that the company violated his order. apple again lost its appeal of that decision.

Dean Takahashi, editorial director of gaming news outlet GamesBeat, said, “Epic Games has done the entire industry a huge favor by fighting these antitrust cases for six years, and losing all (potential) revenue from Fortnite on mobile during that time.”

He said it may take some time for the company to re-establish its consumer base on mobile platforms after such a long absence.

As far as price changes go, “They’re giving you less for the money you’re paying them, right? That’s probably the right way to do it without angering too many people,” Takahashi said.

Fortnite hiked global prices last time in 2023 And 2021.

Players’ hours reduced in 2025

Stephen Totilo, a reporter who covers the gaming industry through his Game File newsletter, pointed out that it is difficult to say with certainty whether Epic Games, a private company, is hurting financially.

Its estimated Fortnite generates billions in annual revenue, although that number appears to be falling between 2021 and 2023.

“Fortnite is still one of the biggest video games in the world, but Epic says players will spend hours on it in 2025 were belowThan 2024, Totilo wrote in an email to CBC News. The review states the company’s total gameplay in the year 2025 rejected Up to 6.65 billion hours.

“Even when people are playing Fortnite, they don’t have to spend money on it, so it’s even harder to say if players are going for more of a free ride these days,” Totilo said.

Flexibility of ‘game forever’

Ash Parrish, a video game journalist in Akron, Ohio, said it’s unlikely the price increase will cause gamers to abandon Fortnite.

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

That format is “incredibly flexible,” Parrish said, partly because the games are designed with a social element and partly because younger users are not spend on console As 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 in these Forever Games. So, even if the price goes up, you deal with it,” Parrish said.

“I don’t really expect any major deviations from the Fortnite product.”

‘More about maintaining or increasing profit margins’

Alex Baudet, an assistant professor of marketing at Laval University in Quebec City, said Fortnite’s decision to devalue its currency rather than directly raising prices will likely soften the blow for consumers — especially children, who won’t have to ask their parents to spend more on the game.

But he says the pricing strategy seems contrary to Epic’s outline for a David-and-Goliath battle against the tech giants.

“Does Fortnite really have to change its price to make money or survive as a company? I would love to see the numbers because right now, it’s more about maintaining or increasing profit margins than actually surviving,” said Baudet, who has studied the impact of online gaming on families.

“If you fight for a cause, and at the end of the day, your whole rationale has been that you’re trying to protect the players and make sure you’re getting maximum value for the players, then it’s inconsistent to devalue what you’re giving them,” he said.

Conversely, Takahashi thinks the gaming community will give Epic a chance in this case.

Takahashi said, “There’s a level of goodwill that gamers extend to games where they feel like they’re not being over-earned or targeted for extraction.”

“I don’t think Epic Games is a company that can be easily targeted for being overly greedy.”