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Epic plans to add an undo button to Fortnite's in-game store

The company says it doesn't "want to benefit from accidental purchases or players regretting a purchase."

Alissa McAloon, Publisher

March 12, 2019

2 Min Read
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Epic plans to update Fortnite’s in-game store with a undo button that would let a player refund purchases of cosmetic items purchased with in-game V-Bucks currency within five minutes of the purchase, noting as well that the company doesn’t want to benefit from accidental or regrettable purchases.

The ease with which players can spend Fortnite's premium currency, either intentionally or accidentally, is the topic of many heated replies in the original Reddit post where Epic mentions its pending undo system, and concerns over the ease of making in-game purchases, sometimes unintentionally, in games played by children is an issue game developers have been aware of for some time now.

As pointed out in the Reddit thread, Fortnite's current store purchases an item immediately upon clicking, pressing, or tapping that purchase button. However, the Japanese version of Fortnite takes players to a confirmation screen ahead of any cosmetic purchase, a feature not present in other versions of the game.

Later on in that thread, an Epic Games employee showed up to say that there aren’t plans to bring that same confirmation screen to the West, but that Epic has a “undo” button planned to the store page in a future update.

“We neither want to add friction for players nor do we want to benefit from accidental purchases or players regretting a purchase,” said that developer.

The game currently has a token-based refund system that gives players a set amount of lifetime refund requests for accidental purchases made within the last 30 days. The dev explains that that original solution has now evolved into an undo button in the store “that allows you to easily refund without using up a token within a 5 minute time window, assuming you haven’t started a match since purchase,” though no timeline is given for when this feature will show up in Fortnite.

About the Author

Alissa McAloon

Publisher, GameDeveloper.com

As the Publisher of Game Developer, Alissa McAloon brings a decade of experience in the video game industry and media. When not working in the world of B2B game journalism, Alissa enjoys spending her time in the worlds of immersive sandbox games or dabbling in the occasional TTRPG.

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