This is an introductory excerpt from our full deep dive. To read the whole article, click here.

The UGC train showed no sign of slowing down in 2024, with engagement at all-time highs, launches of new tools powered by AI lowering the barrier of creation, and more brands and IP owners fully embracing the potential of UGC platforms.

The UGC segment has been getting more sophisticated, from developers releasing increasingly polished titles, to agencies and brands understanding how best to reach their desired audiences in more successful and authentic ways. The ecosystem is maturing at an incredible pace.

The two main UGC platforms, Roblox and Fortnite Creative, saw great increases in engagement compared to 2023. In its Q4 2024 press release, Roblox reported substantial year-over-year growth in all metrics, including bookings ($4.4B, 24% year-over-year growth) and DAUs (82.93M, 21% year-over-year growth).

There was a slight hiccup when short seller Hindenburg Research released a critical report called “Roblox: Inflated Key Metrics For Wall Street And A Pedophile Hellscape For Kids.” It created some panic with investors and Roblox’s stock price dipped temporarily, but the intended sell-off never materialized. Roblox has refuted the claims, and the stock price has gone up more than 50% since then. We’ll be digging deeper into Hindenburg’s claims later on.

Fortnite Creative also had a good year, seeing average daily player numbers up 15% year-over-year. UEFN, the game engine for Fortnite Creative, became much more capable during 2024, with the long-awaited Verse Persistence feature, which allows creators to save their progress, debuting in March last year. This has meant that creators can make much more diverse experiences. However, arguably the most important feature added to Fortnite Creative last year was direct links to Fortnite Islands. Finally, no more typing in map codes!

The modding ecosystem has also grown, with the number of downloads skyrocketing and top platforms, such as CurseForge, Nexus Mods, and Mod.io, all experiencing download growth exceeding 40%. More and more games are also embracing official mod support, either by integrating with third-party platforms — such as the recently announced CurseForge integration for Hogwarts Legacy — or by providing their own tools, like Starfield's Creation Kit.

Overwolf’s CurseForge also unveiled premium mods (starting in Ark: Survival Ascended), which have already generated seven figures in revenue, opening up exciting new monetization opportunities for talented creators.

Over on mobile, outside of Roblox, UGC has not taken off in the same way. NetEase’s Eggy Party became a viral hit in China at the tail end of 2022 thanks to its creation tools — launched globally in February 2024 — but has not been a hit. It failed to gain traction outside China, which makes up more than 70% of all its users. Tencent’s much-hyped competitor, Project: Fun Party (元梦之星), came and went with a whimper at the tail end of 2023. Currently, it has less than a third of the users Eggy Party has.

Mediatonic also threw its hat into the mobile ring, with Fall Guys finally being available on mobile via the Epic Games Store app on Android and iOS (the latter in Europe only). However, the creation studio is available only on PC/console, and the process to install Fall Guys on mobile is convoluted, preventing it from making a mark.

Brand engagement has grown, with Roblox doubling (from 200 to 400) the number of brand activations from the time period between Roblox Developers Conference 2023 and RDC 2024. Fortnite Creative has also become a home for brands aiming to reach the coveted college-aged male demographic.

However, how brands are thinking about going into the UGC segment has shifted. The exuberance of 2023, when brands piled into the segment with their own bespoke experiences, gave way to reality in 2024 — namely that slapping a brand/IP/celebrity on an experience is no guarantee of success. Instead, brands have leveraged embedding into existing popular experiences and have seen much more cost-effective results.

As in last year’s UGC report, we’ll cover the key moments of 2024 for Roblox and Fortnite, as well as look at the world of live-service UGC and modding platforms. Finally, we’ll break down creator earnings to see what changed since 2023.

To explore working with Naavik on your UGC games consulting needs, please contact us here. We'd love to chat.

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