Fortnite’s generous new creative economy has a nice advantage

Epic Games is changing the way Fortnite Content creators get paid, and this could have a transformative effect on the gaming ecosystem. Now, 40% of all the money Efi raises Fortnite Hundreds of millions, if not billions, of dollars are at stake.

Last week, Epic introduced what it called “Creator Economy 2.0.” Under the new system, Epic will pay 40 percent I Fortnite Net monthly revenue for Creators based on how much players interact with islands other than Epic Islands. This means that 40 percent of the money Epic makes is from things like V-Bucks Fortnite In-game crew and costume involvement (crossovers like YouTube star MrBeast, vampire Dignitaries) – all of this goes into a creative state buffer.

Fortnite It currently generates “billions of dollars a year in revenue from player acquisitions,” Sacks Pearson, Vice President of Epic Fortnite he said on stage at last week’s “Unreal Situation” event. So even if we assume that translates to just $1 billion in net revenue annually, at least $400 million a year within the agenda. But there’s one big problem: Islands in the Epic game, including the groundbreaking Battle Royale mode, do exist also Entitled to payments from the revenue pool. Epic puts piles of money on the table, and then takes a bunch of it back.

How much pie do creators really get? In the case of Unreal, Pearson said the creative mode is “about 40 percent of the game time Fortnite,” suggesting that Epic isn’t just keeping 60 percent FortniteRevenue, but also 60 percent of the complex. But creators may get less than 40 percent of the 40 percent pool, as payments will depend on that. Relationship. Instead of direct playtime, Epic will determine payments based on whether the island brings in new (or corrupt) players and whether players return on a regular basis.

These metrics, in my opinion, still favor Epic’s own islands. thing that saves to Back to Fortnite Almost every day there are premium Epic Battle Cards, which offer things like new outfits as well as V-bucks to spend in the game store if you gain enough experience by completing missions. The vast majority of these quests can only be done on the Epic Islands, which gives me little reason to branch out into something a non-epic creator made. Experience can be gained in creative mode, but these islands usually don’t give you as much experience as some of Epic’s handcrafted missions.

Epic will also use their payments as “the primary method for Epic to pay for our game development Fortnite Go ahead,” Pearson said in the State of Unreal keynote. Maybe this is just for making things like Battle Royale Islands; Other money not limited to creators is used to fund the development of what Epic callsFortnite Ecosystem development,” including things like game code, art, item shop content, marketing, and customer support, according to the FAQ. (You may need to be signed into your Epic account to follow this link.)

How Epic decides these payments can also be contentious, especially because Epic’s description of the scores is ultimately very vague. (The company also reserves the right to block carrots it deems inappropriate, incl Clone Mario Kart And entertaining some of them are older Fortnite Threat.) The company would be open to criticism about the way it makes payments, Pearson told me in an interview — “Our job is to listen to it,” he says — but it deliberately doesn’t reveal exactly how it measures indices, because it measures indices. You don’t want to accidentally give the wrong kinds of incentives.

I also asked how Epic could expand the battle transitions to better integrate non-epic experiences and thus encourage creators other than themselves. (The company already does this from time to time, but in this new system where Epic pays creators based on player interaction, keeping the Battle Pass focused on Epic might be an unfair advantage.) Pearson told me he expects to change Battle Passes to a better integration. Outside creators work, and while Pearson isn’t committed to when that will happen, he says “I think it’s an important question to better balance what battle card does today.”

The creators I spoke with thought the new system would be much better, without even knowing how much money could actually be made. “[T]Hey, we’re taking a step in the right direction to compensate creators for our hard work on the platform,” Casper Weber, CEO of Beyond Creative, which makes customization Fortnite Brand experiences, he told me in an email.

Under the previous “Support-A-Creator” system, creators never got paid when you played their islands or bought their products from Fortnitea store. If you want to make sure that the creator of the content you liked got paid, you need to know their personal “Creator Code”, and know exactly where to enter this code before I bought anything in the store, and then act already. Until then, this creator will only take 5 percent of your purchase. So a lot Fortnite Creative studios have had to rely heavily on brand deals for revenue instead, effectively building virtual worlds just to advertise brands like Verizon, Chipotle, or Balenciaga.

“The Support-A-Creator ecosystem was built around these creators and audiences, and it wasn’t really designed for creative developers,” says R-leeo Maoate, co-owner, CEO and Creative Director of Zen Creative. [Creator Economy 2.0] There will be a much better way for creators like us to generate revenue, make a living, and motivate us to create better experiences.”

last Fortnite Designers I spoke to similarly suggested that it could lead to better islands for players. “To have a system that you can influence directly by making a really great game, or if you have a game where players spend hours [in] Or come back every day – getting rewarded for it from Epic and seeing that financial return is a huge issue for us,” says Boomer Gurney, creative director of game development at Team PWR. (Although, as with the Support-A-Creator system, creators will still have to earn at least $100 in payments within a year before they can get anything back.)

These outside groups will now compete with Epic for the revenue pool, but “in some ways, we have always competed in the Epic Islands,” Gurney says in an email. “As a team that has always prioritized player engagement and longevity of experiences, we are thrilled to now have a revenue system that directly supports these analytics.” They are also now on a more level playing field when it comes to development; Previously, only creators could create islands with an Epic game Fortnite Tools, but now you can access the new Unreal Editor for Fortnite Which adds several features and allows creators to pull in custom graphic assets.

Effie seems hopeful that the move will lead to new kinds of experiences that aren’t primarily about shooting tense block building. “We want to grow by welcoming creators, offering new types of games and new ways to interact beyond the battle royale experience,” Epic CEO Tim Sweeney told my colleague Andrew Webster. This may lead to a wider audience Fortnite than it is today. Incentives mean we may get something like Roblox game Mega popular adopt me! Life Simulation – And if new players call in, those creators will get paid.

Now that they’re making money keeping gamers interested instead of creating ads for brands, teams like Team PWR and Zen Creative can put more energy into games that might be more focused on having fun. The creators I spoke with learned about the new system on Wednesday — at the same time as others — and so far, they’re hopeful.

“We really came from a lot of people where you couldn’t really make a living in the past months unless you were among the highest percentage of creatives,” Weber told me. “I’m mostly glad to see her moving somewhere.”