Epic Games updates Fortnite island’s gambling rules

After a week of blowback, Epic Games has addressed a recent change that allowed Fortnite Creative builders to offer in-game purchases on their islands. Almost immediately after the feature went live, developers behind one of the most popular Creative maps for younger audiences, Steal the Brainrot, added random item bundles that cost up to 4,900 V-bucks (a 5,000 V-buck pack costs about $36). The creator of this particular Fortnite island also added a prize wheel option where spending V-bucks increased your “luck” with each spin.

Now, Epic is putting its foot down. Well, it’s at least putting some of its toes down.

On Friday, the publisher announced an amendment to its developer rules that will go into effect on Jan. 20: “Do not offer any in-island transactions that directly or indirectly influence prize wheels,” Epic’s new rule reads. Examples provided by Epic include a “luck” boost like the one in Steal the Brainrot, purchasable content that can be used to buy a wheel spin, and any purchasable wheel spin whatsoever.

What’s seemingly not changing, however, is the ability to charge money for random, loot box-style items on Creative islands. When asked for comment, an Brian Sharon, senior communications manager at Epic Games, noted, “No paid random items are coming to Epic-made games.”

Epic’s rules for developers outline the settings that need to be enabled on an island to offer random items for sale to players. These include stipulations like supplying the numerical odds on the items you could get, and a 5,000 V-buck cap on Creative island items for sale. So while Epic Games-created Fortnite experiences don’t have them, they are being hosted within the game.

Epic also offers a suite of parental tools that can keep a younger player from purchasing in-game content without permission. Still, allowing Creative developers offer to sell random loot seems like a step backward for Fortnite.

Back in 2022, Epic Games settled with the Federal Trade Commission over the publisher using “dark patterns to trick players into making unwanted purchases and let children rack up unauthorized charges without any parental involvement.” Three years before that, Epic had pulled loot boxes from the game. In its 2022 statement, Epic promised “no gambling ever,” while also revealing new parental controls.

With random loot available on Creative islands for sale, this certainly feels like a backslide in Epic’s stance. For now, Epic Games is giving the creators 100% of the money earned by their islands, meaning that they aren’t directly profiting from these random loot boxes. Starting in February 2027, though, the income generated by Creative island transactions will be split evenly between Epic Games and the island developer.

While no paid random items are coming to Epic-made games might suffice for now, once Epic starts to profit on the Creative island transactions that are also hosted within Fortnite, shouldn’t they be considered Epic products? With that in mind, it’s hard to imagine this issue going away anytime soon.

Update: We have added the name and title of the Fortnite representative above.