A new update has launched, and while unsurprisingly a new weapon and some bug fixes came along with it, a surprising new feature arrived as well in the form of a new refund system. The new system allows players who have bought any cosmetic items (that means battle passes, battle tiers, starter, and founder packs, and Save The World Items are not eligible) in the past 30 days, to in turn refund them for the in-game currency known as V-bucks. However, it seems that in just a few hours the service has already been taken down. So far many have speculated that it is because the service has been so popular that it actually overloaded the new system.

Still, before we get further into the cause of the shutdown, lets first break down the new system that I am sure will be up and running again soon. Epic Games, perhaps in their most clever move yet, has decided to introduce a refund system that at first glance might not seem like a genius money-making scheme when in actuality it totally is. By allowing players to now dip their toes in the item buying market, while offering a fail-safe out for them to get some in-game currency back, it allows them to more effectively ease skeptical players into normalizing the act of purchasing in game items. At this point, anyone who has ever played a free to play game has likely started off saying they will never purchase anything from the supposed free game.

However, time goes on, temptation kicks in, and you eventually cave in and buy something. That moment is key because once you rip off the Band-Aid, buying other things slowly doesn’t seem like that big a deal. This is what Epic Games is banking on. By allowing plays to test out new items and return them if they don’t like them, it give players the opportunity to say, “Huh that wasn’t so bad I guess I can treat myself to this new skin.” Then next thing you know they are buying up every cool new skin and emote. It’s pretty clever on their part that is of course when it actually works. 

Right now Epic Games is scrambling to fix the new system and get it up and running as soon as possible. They also put up a notification notifying players that purchasing V-bucks will be disabled starting at 1 am EST and remain that way for the next one to two hours. Obviously, this was not exactly the rollout that Epic Games was expecting, but I’m sure that once the dust settles both Epic Games and us consumers will be happy with the results.