Wertandrew 🛸@Wertandrew
Kiwi was featured when UEFN came out with a pretty fun map and was promoted by Fortnite on so many channels. So has the quality bar increased and he can't compete now? Has the market become more saturated?
This is a great ecosystem, but there is 0 creator representation anymore, and only a few services drag it down from an otherwise incredible UGC space. Epic is smart and they will eventually figure it out (and/or listen), but for now this is directly affecting the people who supported the tools from day 1, people who helped it grow with patience and endurance. Those people not only do not get a thank you anymore (as seen with all the recent UE Fest rejections, I guess we only mattered year 1 for marketing purposes), but they are treated to impossible scenarios where they have to detach their artistic values that previously worked, to adapt to a shallow creator meta developed by the community that was attracted by the "make money" ads, and an unknown algorithm that constantly shifts and is potentially bugged but cannot be reported, and is faceless to the value that games represent. It's not too late to fix this Epic, but more work is needed than before strangely, which means the ecosystem health has taken two steps back the past 2 years (decline started when Discovery launched IMO). The more you delay this, the more work you ll need to bring it back.
- Epic is afraid of scammers, so they don't share what makes Discovery work, in fear of exploitation. This creates too many unknowns when publishing, making it feel like you need "luck" to succeed. Fix: Epic shows fully how Discovery works, adds a community advisory and moderation program (which are also moderated), and adds/enforces strict rules on people who exploit the system.
- A major incentive of being a "noble" creator was that Epic may contact you and offer collaborations for projects, or involve you in events. This alone gave a major reason not to exploit the system for money grabs, and instead focus on quality and education (as a creator). But since UEFN came out and a little after that, they stopped collabs with creators and stopped events too, mainly because they stumbled on a few bad apples. So now that incentive is no more, making everyone rely on "I'll do one project to fund the project I really want to make" mentality, then the second part is then drained by the first due to the live service element required. Fix: bring back collabs with creators, host more "gamejam" events where the creators that contributed the most the past three months (and don't pick new ones everytime for the sake of diversity, pick ones that have actually earned it, new and old) are invited to an event to build a map for XYZ (maybe e-sports events, to also involve the competitive community). Just look at 2019 Creative under Zak Phelp's leadership, it was perfect and literally all content creators were going crazy for Creative back then, it was THE content farm and part of Fortnite's explosive growth. Atm, NO content creator actively plays UEFN maps that I know of, and that's a huge red flag (maybe I am not well-researched in the space, but I wasn't back then either).
- Monetization is strongly tied to FOMO practices, with CCU numbers and promotion playing the biggest part to earn more as a map maker. This pushes creators into marketing/addictive mechanics, rather than fun or the game itself, which in turn makes Epic not want to promote creators altogether due to the low-quality standards they have, and the overall ecosystem content down spirals. Sure, more short-term players could be good, but focusing on quality will bring the truly loyal players to the ecosystem. Now that audience thinks Fortnite is for kids, and nobody can convince them otherwise at this stage. Fix: Diversify content, add more age groups to the rating system, add filters for artstyles and moods, add servers that players can join and be treated with constant content they can play. Provide more ways to play like a map shuffle mode that only focuses on new content, make access easier and faster for them.
- Market saturation, market maturity and discovery algorithm all have contributed in creators making the same few types of maps that allow them to hit the BR audience, then Fortnite never diversifies that way, cycle repeats. It's so bad now that not even Epic themselves can do it. This also causes creators who do want to innovate and put a lot of effort into a project to not get something in return. Fix: Epic hosts competitions with monetary rewards and judges (no player voting) rate entries based on the essence of great/fun game design instead of how popular and addicting a game is (which is the current metrics for success), then adds curated lists in Discovery that are prime position and are event-related (think ludum dare) and post the winning entries there. This will incentivize new developers (and old) to compete and try new things, as the hooks of the algo do not apply on these games, then the games themselves, in time, will attract different audiences through word of mouth and content creation.
To finish off and go back to the original topic, Epic for now needs to respect those who were here during the dark times of Creative and went through the storm, helped build this ecosystem brick by brick, and allowed UEFN to be considered as a option. And truth to be told, those creators are still here and are still watching, some may even still want to help to bring back another golden age of creativity for Fortnite. But you can't have a relationship without both parties caring for each other. Favoritism goes both ways, we choose Fortnite over everything else, every day. We are loyal and we love what we do to the point of addiction. Personally, I made it here through hard work and enjoying the games I make, and so did Kiwi. But the only difference is that we don't get an award, a reward, heck even a thank you in this ecosystem (at least lately), just a slap in the face and an occasional ask for another bug report. I am disappointed.
