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Epic Games is trying to create a better economy for Fortnite creators with what it calls “Creator Economy 2.0,” which it announced during its State of Unreal keynote on Wednesday.
Previously, Epic creators participated in the company’s “Support-A-Creator” program. In the program, creators were given individual codes, and if someone bought something in the Fortnite store with this code, that creator would get 5% off your purchase. But the major downside of this model is that creators would have to promote their code and just hope people would remember to use it when shopping.
Fortnite generates “billions” of dollars in revenue annually from purchases of outfits and items from the game’s in-game store, Saxs Persson, Epic’s executive vice president of Fortnite ecosystem, said on stage at the event. As part of Creator Economy 2.0, Epic plans to distribute 40% of from Fortnite net revenue to “eligible creators who publish games in fortnite,“a description that includes Epic itself.
“Pool payouts are based on island performance. We consider data such as island popularity, engagement, retention, attracting new players,” Persson said. There is no need to design nifty monetization loops or extractive triggers. You create an island that players love; that’s all you need to be part of the new economy. Epic has more details on the payments in its blog post on the new plan.
Epic has also launched a dedicated platform Fortnite Creator Portal at https://create.fortnite.com/, where Creators can register for the program. Epic will pay creators retroactively based on engagement starting March 1. The new changes are coming alongside the Unreal Editor for Fortnitea PC application that offers creators many new Unreal Engine tools to create Fortnite experiences.
