Yes, probably. You see I bought Fortnite for $40~ when it was a completely different game; a cooperative player vs. environment building game with wave attacks. This game was entirely about microtransactions and gambling. After every round/storm passage you'd be sent to an unskippable screen with it.
Then Epic saw how well PUBG was doing with the Epic engine and turned Fortnite into a PUBG clone. In this new PUBG clone called Fortnite the gambling and microtransactions were just as bad as in the original Fortnite. Over time as the new PUBG clone called 'Fortnite' became a world sensation it both faced more scrutiny and had other monetization options with IP licesing. They massively dialed back the gambling/microtransactions but still face many court cases about it today.
You probably only played the modern versions after they were seeking to avoid the consequences for their actions.
Did they do something to Fortnite that I don't know about? I thought the only thing Fortnite did was allow pay-to-win in their community games (just like Roblox), otherwise the main game is still cosmetic only like Valve's games.