By Chris Scullion

Copyright videogameschronicle

Developers who make their own Fortnite islands will soon be able to sell in-game items, Epic Games has announced.

Starting from December, ‘creators’ will be able to sell items directly from their Fortnite Islands, opening up new ways to make money from their creations.

Items sold can be either consumable (such as power-ups) or durable (such as weapons or cosmetic items) and traditionally remain within the confines of that creator’s island, and aren’t able to be used elsewhere in the game.

Epic says that until the end of 2026, creators will earn 100% of the V-Bucks value from sales made in their islands, with this changing to 50% in 2027.

Epic says ‘V-Bucks value’ is defined by what’s left after platform and store fees are removed, meaning during the period creators are eligible for 100% of V-Bucks value, this works out to around 74% of the money spent on V-Bucks.

As well as the ability to sell items, creators will also soon be able to spend money to have their islands featured in a new Sponsored Row, which will give them more visibility in the game’s Discover menu.

Epic says 100% of the revenue generated by the Sponsored Row will also go into the engagement pool until the end of 2026, after which it will drop down to 50%.

According to Epic, the drop from 100% to 50% in 2027 is necessary to cover the costs of servicing the Fortnite ecosystem.

“The funds that don’t go back to creators contribute to server hosting costs, safety and moderation costs, R&D and other operating expenses,” the company says. “In recent years, Epic has been investing and operating the business at a loss.”

Creators already receive payouts from Epic Games based on player engagement in their islands. 40% of the net revenue from Fortnite’s own Item Shop and related real-money purchases goes into an ‘engagement pool’, which is distributed to the creators of custom islands.

The engagement payout formula which determines how much a creator is paid depends on such factors as minutes played, new users, lapsed users, ‘island retention’ and how many players spend V-Bucks around the same time as playing the island.

Epic says that since it launched the ability for creators to make their own Fortnite islands, players have spent over 11.2 billion hours playing 260,000 creator-made islands, resulting in payouts of $722 million to date.