Epic announced today that beginning this December, developers making their own games in Fortnite will be able to sell in-game items directly from their items as a new line of potential revenue on top of the revenue already received from engagement payouts.
The news was announced with a blog post on the official Fortnite website, where Epic explained that as part of this new feature's implementation, developers will earn 100% of the value from sales in their islands from December 2025 through to the end of 2026. After that, the normal rate earned will be 50%.
Payouts from engagement are also being updated, with an update coming on November 1, 2025, to include changes like "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."
Epic will also add a sponsored row to its Discover page. "All creators will have transparent market data to bid for placement in the row and enter an auction to surface islands in the new Sponsored Row," Epic writes. The revenue split will also follow the same timeline as the sale of in-game items, with developers receiving 100% from revenue generated by being in the sponsored row from November 2025 through to the end of 2026, with it dropping to 50% afterwards.
Creator Communities are another new feature that Epic is launching in the next few months, letting developers "build community forums with island updates, event information, feedback requests, and more. Creator posts will also appear to players in Fortnite across Island Lobbies, Island Pages, Creator Pages, and a new row in Discover."
It's the latest step in Epic continuing to compete with Roblox, which comes across particularly with how Epic shares the difference between what can be earned on Roblox as a creator there versus developing games for Fortnite.
Whether this will actually generate more revenue for Fortnite developers is another question, since players will still have to want to buy these items in the first place.
"Since UEFN launched, players have spent over 11.2 billion hours across 260,000 live creator-made islands, which has resulted in $722,000,000 paid out to date. We'll continue investing in new tools that unlock more development possibilities for creators."
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