Roblox has slowly (but steadily) cemented itself as one of gaming's giants, even beating Steam for concurrent users back in late August—which, given the size of Gabe Newell's videogame empire, sure is something. That's due in part to the fact people can create and share content for the platform and, crucially, make a bit of money off it.
These breakout hits, like Steal a Brainrot, are completely beyond my understanding (I still remember cassette tapes and Nokia brick phones), but there's no denying their utter chokehold over the gaming youth.
"Hey," says Fortnite, "we want a bit of that pie!" While Fortnite's had its own creator tools for a minute—you can create an 'island', essentially your own map and game-mode, then earn cash based on engagement—creators will, for the first time, be able to rake in the moolah directly from in-game item sales on their islands.
As explained in this blog post, beginning in December of this year, creators will be able to make 100% of the "V-Bucks value from sales in their islands" until the end of 2026, after which it'll be 50%. After retail fees, that's 74% and 37% of the raw dollar value spent on whatever visitors to your islands buy, respectively.
What's more, those aforementioned engagement payouts, typically "40% of the net revenue from Fortnite’s Item Shop and related real-money purchases into the engagement pool", are going to be increasing. For the first six months your island's live, you'll be raking in 75%.
Epic then takes a downright funny potshot at Roblox—claiming, via info sourced from Roblox's own site, that Fortnite creators will earn a stonking 12% more than Roblox's do from those item sales.
Competition's heating up in the totally-not-exploiting-child-labour market, I guess. In all seriousness, though, it's both cool and concerning that paid UGC is the next step for these games-turned-platforms.
Cool in that we're seeing all sorts of new games and trends come out of the woodwork of these ecosystems, which isn't even necessarily a new phenomenon (Before Among Us, there was Garry's Mod's TTT). I think it's neat that the zoomers are making new stuff and setting industry trends, even if I'm not hip and with it enough to understand.
Uncool in that, well, the games industry kinda sucks right now, and I'm not sure it's healthier for young—or just up-and-coming—developers to be directly tied to monopolistic platforms that take a fat, chunky cut just to get their start.
Either way, Fortnite is rolling up its sleeves and getting elbow-deep in the arms race. It's the default dances versus the, uh, whatever the kids are using Roblox for. Farming sims? What do you mean 8.9 million players? Good lord. No wonder Epic wants a slice.
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