Fortnite's Engagement Payouts Proportionally Distribute 40% of Net Revenue to Creators

Epic Games has revealed its long-term vision for the future of content creation, distribution, and monetization, with a focus on a connected, open ecosystem and economy that will benefit creators and developers in the metaverse. During the State of Unreal keynote at the annual Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, the company announced several new initiatives.

Unreal Editor for Fortnite (UEFN) was launched in Public Beta, which enables creators and developers to publish experiences directly to Fortnite with many of Unreal Engine 5's powerful features. Creators will have greater creative flexibility to reach Fortnite's huge audience of over 500 million player accounts.

Alongside the launch of UEFN, Epic also introduced Creator Economy 2.0 and engagement payouts, which is a new way for eligible Fortnite island creators to receive money based on engagement with their published content. Engagement payouts proportionally distribute 40% of the net revenue from Fortnite's Item Shop and most real-money Fortnite purchases to eligible creators.

Later this year, Epic plans to bring together its marketplaces, including Unreal Engine Marketplace, Sketchfab, Quixel Bridge, and the ArtStation Marketplace, to launch Fab, a unified marketplace where creators can find, publish, and share digital assets for use in creating digital experiences.

In addition, Epic announced the release of Unreal Engine 5.2, which offers further refinement and optimizations alongside several new features. The 5.2 Preview release is available today via the Epic Games Launcher and GitHub.

Finally, Epic unveiled MetaHuman Animator, which offers a faster, simpler workflow for facial animation that is accessible to indie studios and hobbyists while providing the quality of facial animation required by AAA game developers and Hollywood filmmakers.

Epic's vision for a connected, open ecosystem and economy has the potential to change the way creators and developers approach content creation, distribution, and monetization. The launch of UEFN and engagement payouts for eligible creators will enable more creators to reach Fortnite's massive audience, while the launch of Fab and the 88% revenue share will provide a unified marketplace for creators to find and share digital assets. The release of Unreal Engine 5.2 and MetaHuman Animator also offers new tools for developers to create high-quality content with greater ease.