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Fortnite Creator Economy 2.0 will share 40% of net revenue with creators

As part of a revamped creator economy, Epic and the Fortnite team will share part of its revenue with eligible creators.

Ozzie Mejia

March 22, 2023 11:01 AM

Epic Games

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Epic Games, the makers of Fortnite, have come to recognize that its ongoing popularity can largely be credited to the various user creators that pour their efforts into many of the game's sellable assets. With this in mind, Fortnite is looking to give back to the community by announcing Creator Economy 2.0, which will share portions of community creation revenue with eligible contributors.

"The money in the economy comes from players spending in the Item Shop," explained Fortnite Ecosystem EVP Saxs Persson during Wednesday's State of Unreal keynote. "Fortnite generates billions of dollars a year in revenue from player purchases. Fortnite players who have fun engaging in islands tend to spend more money in the Item Shop. Creators who make popular islands are bringing real value to the Fortnite ecosystem and we're going to share the resulting revenue with them. This is the engine powering Creator Economy 2.0. We believe this so strongly, we will distribute 40 percent of Fortnite's global net revenue to eligible creators who publish games in Fortnite, both independent developers and Epic.

Here's a further explanation of player payouts from the Fortnite Creator Portal:

Epic places 40% of the net revenue from Fortnite’s Item Shop and related real-money purchases into the engagement pool. Engagement payouts will be made monthly from this pool to the publishers of all eligible islands, including independent creators' islands, and Epic's own islands like Battle Royale. The payouts are based on player engagement with each island as described below.

In other words: Epic builds and sells Fortnite cosmetics, often working with third-party IP owners to bring their work into Fortnite. Starting March 1, 2023, Epic began reserving 40% of that revenue to distribute it based on the engagement created by eligible island publishers’ creative work, both yours and Epic’s. In this way, Epic will further reward creators for their creative work in Fortnite.

Epic’s existing Support-A-Creator program that underpinned Creator Economy 1.0 remains, but is returning to its roots as an affiliate marketing program for streamers and social media content creators. We've removed the Support-A-Creator device within Fortnite islands to keep gameplay focused on fun. Players can now show support for their favorite creators’ islands simply by playing them.

While engagement payouts are open to companies, it is also available to island creators who are 18 or older. Epic hopes to expand the pool to younger creators in the future. The publisher does note that the 40 percent figure can fluctuate based on Fortnite's overall monthly revenue, so that 40 percent may not always stay at 40 percent and is subject to change.

Fortnite's Creator Economy 2.0 is launching today. Island creators can sign up on the Fortnite website and may be eligible for payment retroactive to March 1.

Ozzie Mejia

Senior Editor

Ozzie has been playing video games since picking up his first NES controller at age 5. He has been into games ever since, only briefly stepping away during his college years. But he was pulled back in after spending years in QA circles for both THQ and Activision, mostly spending time helping to push forward the Guitar Hero series at its peak. Ozzie has become a big fan of platformers, puzzle games, shooters, and RPGs, just to name a few genres, but he’s also a huge sucker for anything with a good, compelling narrative behind it. Because what are video games if you can't enjoy a good story with a fresh Cherry Coke?