The cost of running Fortnite has gone up a lot
Uh oh, Epic’s not making more profit than last year! We need to squeeze money out of parents’ pockets for their gullible kids and milk our cash cow harder!
Epic Games needs Fortnite players to "help pay the bills" as the multi-billion-dollar company raises V-Bucks prices while making Battle Passes and Crew way worse in value
Submitted 7 hours ago by Agent_Karyo@piefed.world to games@lemmy.world
Comments
Rentlar@lemmy.ca 7 hours ago
BigBananaDealer@lemmy.world 3 hours ago
most pathetic excuse ive ever seen. as if fortnite isnt already the most profitable game ever they really need to extract more profit? what dumbass came up with this idea and what dumbass okayed it
Ryoae@piefed.social 2 hours ago
I think by ‘bills’ they mean ‘we need to pay licensing fees for the random shit we decided to incorporate into our shitty battle royale game’.
I’ve seen the likes of Eminem, random nobody streamers, Jason Voorhees, washed up things become just things in Fortnite. You know, why not go all the way, get the entire cast of Seinfield, Friends and other no-nonsense shit in there while you’re at it.
Epic only looks like the dumbasses here because they truly believe that these things are all what people would want. When they’re catering to a generation that would not have any clue who any of these things are in the past 20 - 40 years ago.
Sanctus@anarchist.nexus 7 hours ago
Did someone assume the money on tap from skins would last forever?
ampersandrew@lemmy.world 7 hours ago
It’s still going strong. It remains one of the most profitable games on the planet.
Sanctus@anarchist.nexus 7 hours ago
Yeah but how long can you add stuff to it until the margins dont make sense? How many salaries have gone up due to the success that werent being paid in the beginning? What competition do they have now that they didn’t have when they basically popularized the genre? How much does it cost to frankenstein it into a roblox platform? All things to consider when thinking of the future of Fortnite. I dont think its failing by any means, but I am seeing bloat creep.
chicken@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 hour ago
It’s funny, since what they are actually selling (cosmetic items) is basically free and any scarcity of those is entirely artificial, even if the cost of actually running the servers is not. The only factor that makes sense for determining the price is what prices will translate into the most revenue. I guess before they were setting prices lower than the maximum they think people will be willing to pay? Or that somehow people are willing to pay more now?
THE_GR8_MIKE@lemmy.world 1 hour ago
Remember when Epic made Unreal and Gears of War? Now their CEO, same guy, btw, is some AI slop jock asshole. This doesn’t surprise me.
ripcord@lemmy.world 54 minutes ago
I remember when their CEO, same guy, was selling floppies by mail.
Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world 4 hours ago
Well…I lost access to my email account assosiated with my Epic Games login.
I emailed them, and they kept refering me back to this automated process that just kept asking me to check an email.
I don’t have access to that email.
So I contacted them, and said I’m not going to buy any games from them, because as far as I know, this account could be taken away at any time, since I can’t access the assosiated email. All they gotta do is say “security check, we sent a code to your email. Use it to login”. If that happens, I’m locked out of my epic games account.
That was 2 years ago. I had the same issue with steam, since steam also used that email account. I forget what steam did to verify, but I remember I had to jump through some hoops. But then they switched my assosiated email.
I actually JUST realized that my tivo account had the same issue. I called them, they didn’t even make me jump hoops. They just said “oh, you have a new email? Yeah yeah, thats fine, it’s switched. Should we change your password? No? Ok. Have a nice day.”
So now it’s 2 years later. Total money spent on Epic? $0.
Total money spent on Steam? Well…I don’t have an exact total, but I figure it’s maybe $1000? Now keep in mind I’m 1 person. How many other people are in my situation who just moved on and forgot about Epic? They don’t fill any niche where they’re needed in the space. It’s not like GOG where it’s DRM free, and they’re the only ones that do that. Epic’s library is probably entirely available on Steam. Yeah, I’ll take your free games while I can still log in, but I’m not paying a dime until my email situation is resolved.
I feel zero sympathy for Epic games, and if they go out of business, oh well.
Ryoae@piefed.social 3 hours ago
That problem can be applicable to any service where you lost an e-mail, you know you’re registered to them, but for some reason they didn’t think things through enough about these kinds of scenarios happening. So they just subject people to automated circle-jerking or asking for blood samples to prove you’re with them before even lifting a finger.
Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world 2 hours ago
I just remembered I had to do the same thing with Sony, and Nintendo. Nintendo had me verify some games I had bought. Sony was a bit weirder. They asked me which games I had been playing. But it didn’t come off like verification. It sounded like the guy at Sony was bored and lonely. He was just like “Sooooo, what’cha been playin?” And I was like “uhhhhh…I guess Grand Theft Auto?”
I felt bad in saying that my playstation usage had dropped DRAMATICALLY the past 10 years. I barely turn it on.
And then he says “says here you haven’t played in a while. Any other games you’ve played recently?”
Uhhhhh, no?
And thats when I realized he was asking for verification purposes.
So far, Yahoo, Hotmail, and Epic are the only services that won’t let me back into my service. The rest have all had other ways.
Now to be fair, yahoo has a way you can pay them money to have an expert look into things. But I refuse to pay money for some guy in India to tell me I need to log into hotmail and give him the code. Then shut down and take my money without resolve when he finds out I can’t.
I know the passwords. I just can’t log in, because they both want security codes sent to other services I have no access to.
MrFinnbean@lemmy.world 2 hours ago
What youvare talking about? Any good service does not let anybody who contacts them change the login email just because they say they have lost the access to it. Thats like basic security.
talos@feddit.org 3 hours ago
I have my mail on a smaller email server with pretty strict spam filters. The epic games 2nd factor emails take a while to get through to me for some reason, so I’m in the same position as you. Tried to switch to the account email to my Gmail account, but they denied the request. So yeah, definitely not going to buy anything else from them, as they’re not very helpful.
Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world 1 hour ago
And that’s the thing. Two years ago, I didn’t understand all the hate Epic gets.
Now? I’m viewing it as a temporary free service. I’ll download your free games…but I also know this could all be taken away from me at any moment. Even if they somehow fixed my issue today, at this point, I’d still be hesitant to buy from them over steam. Whereas, if they’d have fixed my issue two years ago, I probably still wouldn’t get the hate they get.
I get the hate they get now though, and they deserve it.
TheSeveralJourneysOfReemus@lemmy.world 2 hours ago
Well…I lost access to my email account assosiated with my Epic Games login.
my only regret is that I had celeste over that account, but it’s no biggie because it’s not exactly expensive either. i also had fez but gawd the puzzles in that game, i tried to solo it and of course i couldn’t get a lot out of it. than i found out that the final puzzle bruteforced by reverse engineering, so i’m at piece now, i’m not dumb after all.
orenj@lemmy.sdf.org 5 hours ago
Wtf didn’t they make a shitzillion dollars? Why are they needing help to ‘pay the bills’? Did they squander all of that money on EGS and avocado toast? Smh
Kolanaki@pawb.social 4 hours ago
Tim Sweeny needs a new gold plated swimming pool.
yermaw@sh.itjust.works 5 hours ago
Bills and shareholders pockets are basically the same thing.
thingsiplay@lemmy.ml 6 hours ago
The poor indie company needs some fundraising. :-(
BiomedOtaku@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 hours ago
Yup and all of the morons on this earth will line up with no lube and pay like the good little sheep they are.
DiscoShrew@piefed.social 3 hours ago
To be expected from a free to play for profit game.
FaygoRedPop@lemmy.world 7 hours ago
If you’re stupid enough to buy V-Bucks, you don’t deserve the money you’ve earned to begin with.
ampersandrew@lemmy.world 7 hours ago
The children getting V-Bucks for birthdays and Christmas didn’t earn any money in the first place, but they ask for it rather than full entire video games.
FaygoRedPop@lemmy.world 6 hours ago
The children getting V-Bucks for birthdays and Christmas didn’t earn any money in the first place
Their parents did. They are fucking stupid.
but they ask for V-Bucks and Roblox money rather than full entire video games.
Those kids are fucking stupid.
devolution@lemmy.world 7 hours ago
And you’ll keep buying it.
Katana314@lemmy.world 6 hours ago
I feel like the Lemmy description should retain the double quotation marks, since they often indicate “…so said a deceitful snake oil salesman.”
newthrowaway20@lemmy.world 6 hours ago
Lol. Lmao, even! Micro transactions and battle passes get enshitified like everything else.
snooggums@piefed.world 5 hours ago
Enshittierfied.
zr0@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 hours ago
How about you finally sunset the worst launcher ever created?
PerfectDark@lemmy.world 1 hour ago
This is pretty interesting to me. I know I’ll get downvoted for this, because the Epic hate is just so strong everywhere. But honestly, I think they need to improve the launcher, not sunset it.
I get it, that sounds obvious. But for 99% of their PC users who aren’t us: people who care about Linux, care about open-source, care about digital ownership and platform freedom, they’re just using the Epic Launcher to play the free games each week. Epic’s reasons are pretty obvious: give away games to lock in users. But I’ve talked to so many users throughout my time covering Steam Deck news for whom PC gaming would just be too expensive without those weekly giveaways.
Anyway, my caffeine-fueled point is this: I just wish they’d put some of their incredible wealth into building a better launcher.
…and maybe into making some better decisions along the way.
Joelk111@lemmy.world 1 hour ago
It is kinda nuts that Epic isn’t as good as Steam still. More competition is more gooder, but Epic isn’t really competing. Of course, I’d also rather the competition not be such a terrible company. I’d love to see more from GOG, I do remember reading that GOG might be coming to Linux natively, which would be awesome.
zr0@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 hour ago
No downvote from me, just because your opinion is unpopular.
Epic had more than enough time AND money to develop a good launcher. Somehow they failed, mostly because of greed and because of the dickhead CEO.
BuboScandiacus@mander.xyz 1 hour ago
Why not make it better ? I believed in them at some point and bought a few games there, I don’t want to lose them and I want a good competitor to steam. They can make great games, they should be able to make a great launcher.