Did You Suddenly Receive a Bunch of Free V-Bucks? Don’t Worry, It’s Not a Scam

You may already be aware of some of the back-and-forth drama going on about Fortnite right now. Epic Games recently instituted a workaround to Apple’s App Store payment policy, and, well, Apple didn’t like that (to put it mildly).

Now, Epic Games is embroiled in a complicated game of chicken with both Apple and Google (and it’s suing both of them). While a lot seems pretty up in the air for Epic, Apple, and Google, some Fortnite players realized that things weren’t all bad — they ended up with free V-Bucks in their account. If you’re one of them, you might be wondering why that happened. Here’s what we know.

As you may have already guessed, your free V-Bucks are directly related to the whole Epic/Apple/Google debacle, and while we certainly wouldn’t want to be involved in all of that legal stuff, you’ve got to admit that free V-Bucks are pretty darn great. But why is Epic apparently just giving V-Bucks away now?

V-Bucks (short for VinderTech Bucks) are Fortnite’s in-game currency. You can spend real money to get V-Bucks, which you then use in the game to purchase Battle Passes and customization items like gliders, outfits, harvesting tools, and back bling.

Up until recently, Epic charged $9.99 per 1,000 in-game V-Bucks. And if you bought them through the Fortnite iOS app, Apple pocketed 30 percent of that money. That’s the part of the whole process that Epic took issue with — and we’re not going to pretend it doesn’t make sense. They’re not the first game devs to resent Apple taking a cut of the profits for an app they had no hand in creating, but they are the first ones to do something about it on such a large scale.

Epic instituted a payment loophole within its Apple app. Players could elect to pay the full $9.99 for 1,000 V-Bucks using the app, or pay $7.99 for 1,000 V-Bucks by making a payment directly to Epic. And you’re never gonna believe this, but people actually wanted to pay less money instead of more money. Wild, right?

On Aug. 13, Epic announced the new, lower price of V-Bucks, but the discount wasn’t the only bonus. Epic also announced that every Fortnite player would receive a free pickaxe (the Shooting Starstaff) and, if they had purchased V-Bucks since July 14, bonus V-Bucks as well.

Those bonus V-Bucks are the free V-Bucks you might be seeing in your account right now (Epic said the bonus bucks would land in accounts by Aug. 17). Basically, Epic is applying the new V-Bucks discount retroactively to any that were purchased in the month prior to their announcement. To that end, players will receive 20 percent of their purchases made in that timeframe as free/bonus V-Bucks.

If you’re sitting on a small fortune of V-Bucks thanks to this move, you can spend them freely without worry that they’ll be removed. We’re still waiting to see exactly how everything plays out between Epic and Apple (and Google now, too), but in the meantime, you might as well have a bit of a shopping spree!