Fortnite is coming after Roblox with a new update for developers/creators that will let them make and sell in-game items to its tens of millions of players.
Roblox, as you may know, shelled out nearly $1 billion to developers in 2024, paying them their cut for creating and selling social spaces, games, and items on its platform. Fortnite–through its Creative mode–also lets developers use its engine to make and publish hangout spaces/games called Islands, and it pays them based on how much engagement their spaces generate. But up until now, Fortnite has been missing out on the booming digital item market, where Roblox has been thriving.
On Roblox, devs can sell all kinds of items, from environmental assets (like trees, weather patterns, and city decor that fellow game-makers can simply buy and drop into their own creations) to outfits for players’ avatars.
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Roblox doesn’t break down creator payouts, so we don’t know how much of that ~$930 million it paid in 2024 was generated by items vs other monetization streams. But we do know Roblox views this as a valuable part of its platform, because during its recent Roblox Developers Conference, it announced its turn on the AI bandwagon involves launching tools to let in-game item developers splurt out functional items like cars and weapons via text prompting.
Fortnite seems to recognize the value, too–and wants to pitch itself as a direct competitor for creators’ attention.
In a company blog post, it said introducing item sales this coming December means “opening up new revenue potential [for creators], in addition to receiving engagement payouts.”
Developers will be able to make both “durable items and consumable items,” it added. Durables are things like skins and weapons, which players can keep and use over and over, while consumables are used once to give a player something specific, like a power-up, then disappear from inventory. (Consumables could also refer to loot boxes, which are technically consumed when opened…)
As for pitching itself against Roblox, Fortnite is coming out swinging: As part of this item-sales debut, it’s dropping the cut it takes of developers’ sales (all sales, not just item sales) from 50% to 0% through the end of 2026, letting them earn more cash from their creations.
That comes with a slight caveat/explanation. Fortnite doesn’t take a straight 50% of government currency. Instead, it takes 50% of the V-Bucks value of a creator’s sales.
Here’s its rundown of how the system works:
“To determine the V-Bucks value in US dollars in a given month, we take all customer real-money spending to purchase V-Bucks (converted to US Dollars), subtract platform and store fees (ranging from 12% on Epic Games Store to 30% on current consoles), and divide it by the total V-Bucks spent by players. Fortnite’s average platform and store fees are currently 26% (with specific fees ranging from 12% on the Epic Games Store to 30% on console platforms).”
Basically, with all this considered, “50% of V-Bucks value translates to ~37% of retail spending, and 100% of V-Bucks value translates to ~74%,” Fortnite says.
Meaning even though it’s dropping its cut to 0%, creators still won’t make 100% of what’s spent on their games and items. Through the end of December 2026, they’ll receive around 74% of what players spend, and after Fortnite begins taking its cut again, they’ll make around 37%.
In its blog post, Fortnite directly compares those figures to Roblox, where developers/creators currently cash out around 25% of the retail spend on their experiences/games/items. (Worth noting, however, that Roblox also used RDC to announce a creator pay bump that’ll push developers from earning $350 per 100,000 Robux spent in their games to $380/100,000. That won’t bring it in line with Fortnite‘s percentage, but it’s better, and maybe indicates Roblox knew this was coming.)
In-game item sales aren’t the only monetization change creators have to anticipate. Fortnite also announced it’s tweaking its engagement payout system to “better reward creators for bringing in new or reengaging lapsed players in Fortnite.”
“Creators that bring in new or lapsed players will receive 75% of those players’ contributions to the engagement payout pool for their first six months. We’ll also factor in signals from direct links, in-game search usage, and first-day playtime patterns when attributing new and lapsed players to an island,” it said. “Additionally, the retention component of engagement payouts will now reward island-specific retention, rather than ecosystem-wide retention to better align with creators’ own efforts in growing this metric.”
Another big change to the engagement system: Fortnite now only counts engagement from players who have made at least one purchase on their account. This, it says, is to combat fraudulent engagement boosting.
Last up is a way for developers to game Fortnite‘s content discovery system. This November, the platform is introducing a “Sponsored Row” shelf on its Discover page. Creators will be able to bid on Sponsored Row spots, and whoever wins will get their Island to display for all users who check out Discover.
Fortnite says Sponsored Row will pay off for creators not just in visibility, but in cash, too.
“Long-term, 50% of sponsorship revenue generated by Sponsored Row will go into the engagement payout pool, boosting the pool size for all creators,” it explained. “From launch through the end of 2026, this rate will be 100%.”
