Last month Epic Games unveiled Unreal Editor for Fortnite, a new PC app that offers access to many of the same tools Unreal Engine 5 developers use. Combined with a “Creator Economy 2.0” that sets aside 40 percent of the money Epic makes from their Item Shop to pay content creators based on engagement and it’s clear Fortnite is set to change in a big way. Epic has been throwing around a lot of big talk about the metaverse, but in the near-term, it’s obvious who they’re targeting – Roblox. They want Fortnite to be a social hub populated by endless user-created experiences like Roblox, but going in that direction opens up a whole can of worms. Roblox may be successful, but it also has a (justified) bad reputation for exploitative and unsavory content targeted at its mostly-young userbase.
So, how is Fortnite going to avoid becoming the cesspool Roblox often is? Well, according to a new GamesIndustry.biz interview with Epic, every new island (the word Epic is still using for all experiences created using the Unreal Editor) will be moderated before they’re made available to other players. Creators also won’t be able to monetize their work — Creator Economy payouts will be only way to make money — so the hacked-out, exploitative microtransaction schemes you see in Roblox shouldn’t be an issue.
“We’re taking a different approach. One is: our creators can’t directly monetise. They are paid based on the quality of engagement that they made. So there’s no incentive to sell golden swords that gate progression. So you kind of rule out a whole category of things that we don’t think is good for the ecosystem at any stage, and in particular now at this stage. The second thing is that we pay creators in real money – they’re not paid in Robux, they’re not paid in V-bucks. […] We don’t want to artificially keep people in the ecosystem. We want people to invest and want to be part of the ecosystem.”
It all sounds good, but then, Roblox insists they’re against most of the questionable content found on their platform too. Will Epic actually be able to keep a lid on things if Fortnite user-created content really takes off? That definitely remains to be seen.
Unreal Editor for Fortnite is available now. The editor is only available for PC, but your creations will be playable on all platforms.
