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Fortnite Engagement Payout Update
The Fortnite Team
Following the introduction of engagement payouts in March 2023, we’re happy to share an update on the effort and changes to engagement payout metrics that increase creator earnings for April’s upcoming payout.
In addition to the new metric, we will continue to measure Island performance based on player popularity and retention metrics as outlined in our March Creator Economy 2.0 blog post. We've decided to lower the weighting of these metrics in engagement payouts for now, and we are boosting the new “time played” metric. We expect to rebalance the metrics on user acquisition and retention over time as we add new features like persistence and analytics which give creators more tools for retention and user acquisition.
We are continuing to build features that make it easy to promote islands outside of the Fortnite ecosystem as well as better analytics about user acquisition in Creator Portal. We are also working on additional game tools and devices to build persistence into creator-made games, a key feature for bringing players back to your Islands.
April’s upcoming engagement payouts (paid starting May 30) will reflect the new changes to the payout formula and will result in an increase of 1.45x more total money paid to creators when compared to March.
When annualized with the new April weighting in place, more than 200 creators would earn more than $100k USD per year through engagement payouts.
Since launching the Unreal Editor for Fortnite (UEFN) alongside engagement payouts in March, new and emerging game genres from creators are becoming popular with Fortnite players. Below is a look at the top 10 most popular categories of games built with UEFN so far, as well as the top 10 overall creator-made genres in Fortnite right now.
Team Deathmatch
Gun Game
Horror
Zombies
Lucky Block
Practice
Vehicles
Base Battle
Prop Hunt
Team Deathmatch
Free For All
Zombies
Base Battle
Horror
Lucky Block
Battle Royale
Prop Hunt
Runner
*(excluding Epic-produced islands)
To learn more about engagement payouts, please visit the Island Creator Program sign up page.
Engagement Metric Changes: Rewarding “Time Played”
Moving forward, we’re updating the metrics that we use to calculate engagement payouts to account for the current state of tools in Fortnite’s creator ecosystem and our roadmap. This includes introducing an additional “time played” metric to reward creators for the time players spend in their islands.In addition to the new metric, we will continue to measure Island performance based on player popularity and retention metrics as outlined in our March Creator Economy 2.0 blog post. We've decided to lower the weighting of these metrics in engagement payouts for now, and we are boosting the new “time played” metric. We expect to rebalance the metrics on user acquisition and retention over time as we add new features like persistence and analytics which give creators more tools for retention and user acquisition.
We are continuing to build features that make it easy to promote islands outside of the Fortnite ecosystem as well as better analytics about user acquisition in Creator Portal. We are also working on additional game tools and devices to build persistence into creator-made games, a key feature for bringing players back to your Islands.
March and April Recap
For the vast majority of creators, their first March engagement payout was a significant increase when compared to prior earnings in Epic’s Support-A-Creator program. The top 1000 island creators saw a 5.2x median increase in earnings through engagement payouts over SAC in March.April’s upcoming engagement payouts (paid starting May 30) will reflect the new changes to the payout formula and will result in an increase of 1.45x more total money paid to creators when compared to March.
When annualized with the new April weighting in place, more than 200 creators would earn more than $100k USD per year through engagement payouts.
Since launching the Unreal Editor for Fortnite (UEFN) alongside engagement payouts in March, new and emerging game genres from creators are becoming popular with Fortnite players. Below is a look at the top 10 most popular categories of games built with UEFN so far, as well as the top 10 overall creator-made genres in Fortnite right now.
Top UEFN Genres by CCU
Free For AllTeam Deathmatch
Gun Game
Horror
Zombies
Lucky Block
Practice
Vehicles
Base Battle
Prop Hunt
Top 10 Overall Genres* by CCU
PracticeTeam Deathmatch
Free For All
Zombies
Base Battle
Horror
Lucky Block
Battle Royale
Prop Hunt
Runner
*(excluding Epic-produced islands)
To learn more about engagement payouts, please visit the Island Creator Program sign up page.