Epic is going to give 40 percent of Fortnite’s net revenues back to creators

Epic Games is trying to make a better economy for Fortnite creators with what its calls “Creator Economy 2.0,” which it announced at its State of Unreal keynote on Wednesday.

Previously, Epic creators participated in the company’s “Support-A-Creator” program. In the program, creators were issued individual codes, and if somebody bought something in the Fortnite store with that code, that creator would get 5 percent of your purchase. But the significant downside of that model is that creators would have to promote their code and just hope that people would remember to use it when making purchases.

Fortnite generates “billions” of dollars of revenue per year from purchases of outfits and items from the game’s in-game shop, Saxs Persson, Epic’s EVP of the Fortnite ecosystem, said onstage at the event. As part of Creator Economy 2.0, Epic plans to distribute 40 percent of Fortnite’s net revenue to “eligible creators who publish games in Fortnite,” a description that includes Epic itself.

“Payments from the pool are based on the performance of the island. We take into account data like island popularity, engagement, retention, attracting new players,” Persson said. “There’s no need to design cunning monetization loops or extractive gating items. You make an island that players love; that’s all you need to be part of the new economy.” Epic has more details about payouts in its blog post about the new plan.

Epic has also launched a dedicated Fortnite creator portal at https://create.fortnite.com/, where creators can enroll in the program. Epic is going to pay creators retroactively based on engagement starting from March 1st. The new changes arrive alongside the Unreal Editor for Fortnite, a PC app that gives creators many new tools from Unreal Engine to build Fortnite experiences.