The game is free. You spend $10 on V-Bucks for a skin. That $10 gets split before Epic, the company that makes Fortnite, sees most of it.
Fortnite costs nothing to download. Epic still pays thousands of people, huge server bills and artists. It makes that money back by selling things inside the game: skins, emotes and battle passes, paid for with V-Bucks. Most players never buy anything. The ones who do pay for everyone.
Facts: console and phone app stores usually keep up to 30% of digital purchases made through them. Epic says it shares 40% of the net money from Fortnite's item shop and most other purchases with the creators of islands inside Fortnite, based on how much players use them. Epic's own modes, like Battle Royale, are in that pool too, so a lot of it comes back to Epic. The exact split below is simplified.
Store cuts shown at the usual 30% rate; some stores charge less in some cases. Illustration.
A toy model with made-up inputs, not Fortnite's real numbers.
When a game sells a skin of a superhero, a footballer or a pop star, the game company usually pays the owner of that character or that person's name for permission. That's the same licensing deal as the toy lesson: the idea owner earns a slice of every skin, without making the game.
Next time you're about to spend V-Bucks, turn the price back into dollars first, and ask who gets that money: the store, Epic, or the creator of the island you love.
Spending on something you enjoy is fine. Knowing where the money goes makes you the one in charge.
— Mom