Epic Games has announced it will add Exact Amount purchasing to Fortnite, Rocket League and Fall Guys next month, meaning that players soon won’t need to top-up their wallets with any more in-game currency than they need.
Offering in-game credit in set amounts is a common practice within many video games, with microtransactions often requiring players purchase a bigger dollop of currency than is actually required to purchase a particular item.
As of October 14, however, Epic Games’ titles will let players choose the exact amount of currency they require on PC, Nintendo and Xbox consoles, Android devices, iPhones and iPads, as well as via the Fortnite web shop. One conspicuous absentee here is PlayStation — and while Epic does not state why Sony’s consoles will not initially support the feature, it has said it’s working to make the offer available “everywhere”.
An example image of how it will work, above, as published today on Fortnite’s website, shows a player with 600 V-Bucks being offered the ability to buy the remaining 400 V-Bucks required to purchase a 1,000 V-Bucks item.
Where previously the player would have had to buy a whole other 1,000 V-Bucks pack (and be left with an unused 600 V-Bucks balance after their purchase), the Exact Amount method offers a way to only pay for the V-Bucks that are required.
That said, there are still advantages to buying V-Bucks in bulk, and the conversion rate offered for the 400 V-Buck top-up looks to be a straight 100 V-Buck to $1 price. That compares to buying a 1,000 V-Buck pack for $9, or spending even more on larger V-Buck packs and getting even more V-Bucks included.
Epic Games hasn’t said why it is adding this feature now, or why it is launching the offer in general. But it’s certainly an interesting step for Fortnite and the publisher’s other titles to take — and one that others around the industry will likely be watching.
Of course, the advantage to developers of making players pay for more currency than they might need is that players then end up spending more. After that, players are also left with a remaining balance, that they may then decide to put towards something else — and so the cycle continues.
Earlier this week, Borderlands 4 boss Randy Pitchford suggested that the game’s pre-order bundle, which contains a free Fortnite skin, could become a worthwhile investment for players. This is because a previous Borderlands skin fetched “over $2k when trading on eBay” (something which is against the game’s terms of service, and risks your account being banned).
Tom Phillips is IGN’s News Editor. You can reach Tom at [email protected] or find him on Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social
