Fortnite
Fortnite has shown no signs it plans to revert its decision to age-restrict 7% of the skins in the game, which can no longer be taken into certain Creative Maps that are not rated 10 and over. But the restriction may also end up including other shooting-free, all-ages in-game BR events down the road.
While Epic has said that in 2024, they will start modifying these skins to be able to be used in all modes, namely by deleting things like gun holsters and ammo belts, they will not be able to fix all skins. Something like Marvel’s Venom skin, deemed “too scary” for the under 10 crowd, is likely unable to be converted in the same way.
I absolutely understand why players are upset about this, as it seems like a move to further Tim Sweeney’s kid-friendly metaverse inside what was sold as a T-for-Teen rated game. As such, it does feel like Epic should offer refunds for the age-restricted skins.
While new skins are tagged with a note that they are age-restricted, that was not true of the 7% of skins and the variety of cosmetics that have been restricted after being sold originally without that tag. As such, players bought things for dozens or even hundreds of dollars they thought they could use across all of Fortnite indefinitely and now cannot use them in a large portion of activities.
Fortnite
Even if the skins are “fixed” later, they are still unusable for some length of time, and also no one signed up for their skins being “modified” in some way on top of that. And as we know, many skins and cosmetics will not be able to be altered at all, meaning they will be permanently age-restricted.
I don’t know why Epic made this decision in the first place as it seems likely to do more harm than good. They are already making a lot less from the Fortnite store than they used to at the game’s peak, and now it stands to reason that either A) they will start making many more kid-friendly skins so they lower that 7% number, or that age-restricted skins will sell less, as players will know they’ll be modified across modes or banned entirely.
But right now it absolutely should be the case that an optional V-Bucks refund should be available for these newly restricted skins, as that is not how they were sold in the first place. That would of course be a further loss for Epic, but in theory, you could imagine a class action lawsuit here, even if that may be unlikely.
Epic has shown they are not terribly receptive to feedback as of late and this policy is unlikely to be reverted. But the refund idea must be seriously considered as it’s broken a lot of trust with the community.
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