Paying $30 for Fortnite’s Scooby Doo bundle is the real mystery

There’s no getting around it: Fortnite can be an expensive hobby. Sure, you don’t have to buy anything in Epic Games’ battle royale game juggernaut, but I guarantee some crossovers have swayed you to shell out some V-Bucks. The new Fortnite Scooby Doo bundle is admittedly one of the collaborations trying to pry cash out of my wallet, but this time, the price seems far too high in the grand scheme of things.

I don’t mind paying around 1500 V-Bucks for a new Fortnite skin. Typically, this covers the character, and maybe a Backbling or an emote within a smaller bundle. At an estimated $13.48, if we use a handy USD to V-Bucks calculator, it’s certainly cheaper than whatever Call of Duty is trying to peddle toward players these days. For a bigger bundle, though, there used to be a time when they consistently arrived at the 2,000 to 2,400 V-Bucks mark. That’s close enough to $22, as the minimum V-Buck pack at this range is 2,800 from the Item Shop.

Just over $22 is still a lot of money, especially at a time when everything is on the rise. It still feels like I’m getting value for my hard-earned money, though. The new Fortnite Scooby Doo bundle follows Epic Games’ recent trend of jumping past the 3000 V-Bucks mark, settling on the Item Shop at a total of 3400. In exchange for that sum, you get both Shaggy and Scooby Doo skins, a Simple Plan Jam Track, two emotes, a glider, two Harvesting Tools, and two Backblings. If you were to buy all of these elements separately, that’s a whopping 8000 V-Bucks to consider.

That equates to roughly $30, but the problem is one thing: you can’t top up V-Bucks to an exact amount – for now. On October 14, 2025, this is no longer an issue to contend with, according to Epic Games. It’s one of my biggest pains with the Item Shop. I don’t want to buy top-up packs that exceed the value of my purchase. If I want to get this Scooby Doo bundle, my only options are to buy two 5,000 V-Bucks packs at $36.99 each, or if I really want to make my wallet cry, go all-out and buy the massive 13,500 V-Bucks package for $89.99. That’s almost a full $100 for digital cosmetics.

I’ll probably spend that over time on various things over the course of the year, and that’s fine if you do it, too. But as one of two options for getting your hands on a cartoon dog and his lovably dimwitted friend? That’s a mystery even Fred, Daphne, and Velma can’t solve. It speaks to a bigger problem in Fortnite, and that’s how Epic Games seems content knowing it can rinse you repeatedly for cash.

Subscribing to Fortnite Crew only partially solves that issue, rewarding players with 1000 V-Bucks every month and access to all four battle passes. Canceling it revokes your access to the more lucrative tiers, a detail that Fortnite Crew glosses over pretty quickly. It’s unlikely this pricing scheme is going to change anytime soon, either. Instead, I’ll wear some clown makeup, hoping it does.

Until then, you can check out the new Fortnitemares map, solve that pesky Fortnite ESP-DIST-001 issue, or nab some Fortnite codes.