On March 16th, Epic Games announced the impending arrival of the ‘Unreal Editor for Fortnite’, which will offer creators ‘powerful customization capabilities’, allowing them to build like never before in the game. It has now been revealed that, along with the Unreal Editor and Creative 2.0, Fortnite creators could be set to earn money through the game in an entirely new way.
In a post made inaccessible to the public on the Epic Games Dev Community site, it was suggested that something is on the horizon called ‘Creator Economy 2.0’, which will feature something titled ‘engagement payouts’. It seems that, in the near future, Fortnite creators will be getting paid ‘based on what players enjoy’ on their custom islands.
Fortnite Creators Are About to Earn
This news, which seems to have originated from Twitter user, Krowe-moh, and has since been corroborated by Fortnite Creative News, suggests that the economic system that rewards Fortnite creators is set to change. For years, content creators have been earning money through Support-a-Creator codes, which allows them to earn a small commission on sales made in the in-game store using their code.
However, ‘Creator Economy 2.0’ could also be set to reward creators that spend time painstakingly building out some of the most fantastic custom creations in the world of Fortnite. On March 22nd, the beta for the Unreal Editor for Fortnite launches on the Epic Games Store, allowing talented creators to invent never-before-seen islands that are limited only by their imagination.
In fact, in Krowe-moh’s shared screenshots, an unidentified screencap shows a differentiation between both Media Creator and Island Creator, suggesting that there will be a split between the old Support-a-Creator format and the new format driven by the game’s top coders and creators.
According to the post published on the Dev Community, ‘UEFN’ will allow Fortnite creators to:
- Create VFX effects
- Design gameplay with Verse
- Build landscapes and flesh out the environment
- Animate with Control Rig and Sequencer
- Create larger experiences with World Partition
- Use Live Edit to collaborate in real time with others
Put simply, UEFN is the ultimate design package, and it’s going to integrate with Fortnite’s existing toolset – we recently spoke about this upcoming update in more detail.
It seems that Epic Games is willing to reward the creators that spend so long fleshing out their projects, making them as valuable and entertaining as possible. As a reward for ensuring player engagement, it’s possible that Fortnite creators could be set to receive some kind of payout.
This is a notion that was touched upon last year by Epic Games CEO, Tim Sweeney:
We’re building an economy. It will support creators actually building businesses around their work and making increasing amounts of profit from the commerce that arises from people playing their content.
It isn’t yet known exactly how this’ll work, but it’s likely to be lucrative for the top creators in the business. With the UEFN, creativity is totally unlocked, and the most capable creators are sure to build out some remarkable games on the Fortnite platform.
For more Insider Gaming news, check out our coverage of the rumours surrounding the F-Zero GX remaster.
