The Fortnite item shop rotates its offering often, and players are never quite sure how long skins will be available for purchase, but that’s set to change. From the start of the next season, players will get more information on rotations, which should alleviate some FOMO.
Epic Games is Removing the Mystery from Item Shop Rotations
Epic Game has made a lot of money from purchases in the Fortnite item shop. Much of the time, players feel pressured to buy skins early, but up until now they could never know for certain how long an item would be available or if/when it will return. The item shop does have a countdown timer, but this simply marks time to the next shop refresh; it does not inform players when specific items will leave. The Dutch government fined Epic Games $1.2M for these practices, alleging that The government claimed this design pressures children to make purchases quickly, since young players believed the items would be leaving the shop sooner than they were.
In a major win for consumers, Epic Games is addressing this, though it is not clear at this time if the change was made due to pressure from the Dutch government. However, the timing leads me to believe Epic is trying to prevent themselves from future legal issues.
This change, confirmed in a Tweet from Shiina, will add “individual shop timers” for items. Instead of the countdown timer being for the whole shop, this new feature will give players a countdown to the time certain sections will rotate out. Now, players will be able to check item descriptions for the date that it will leave the store. There are multiple instances in Fortnite where items stay in the shop for several rotations, but players have had no way of being informed this will happen in-game. Thankfully, this new change will help players be more informed.
The new update will be added to Fortnite in Chapter 5 Season 3 on May 24th.
Published: May 14, 2024 08:13 pm