Fortnite has paid out roughly $500 million to creators since UEFN and Creator Economy 2.0 launched in March of 2023. These payouts, which have increased 32.5% YoY (measured from March through September), are showing no signs of slowing down. However, Fortnite Creative engagement as a proportion of total Fortnite engagement has actually declined as Epic has launched more successful modes like 'Reload.'

What will it take for Epic's $500 million investment to turn into a thriving UGC ecosystem that creates more value than it costs? Where does the Fortnite economy go from here? Joining host David Taylor today are two top Fortnite creators and influencers, Chad Mustard (aka MustardPlays) and Michael Ha (aka Birdo).

MustardPlays has accumulated over 900K followers on Youtube with his Fortnite Creative content, and his company JOGO Studios, which he co-founded with TypicalGamer, is the 4th most popular game on Fortnite at the time of recording.

Birdo created a Fortnite-focused TikTok following of over 2M. He then hit it big with Minigame Box PvP, which has been played for 5 billion minutes or 1% of all Fortnite Creative time since the release of UEFN in March 2023.

We’d also like to thank Heroic Labs for making this episode possible! Thousands of studios have trusted Heroic Labs to help them focus on their games and not worry about gametech or scaling for success. To learn more and reach out, make sure to visit https://heroiclabs.com/?utm_source=Naavik&utm_medium=CPC&utm_campaign=Podcast

This transcript is machine-generated, and we apologize for any errors.

David: Welcome to the Naavik Gaming Podcast. I'm your host, David Taylor, and today we're talking about what it's going to take for Fortnite to become the next Roblox. For context, Fortnite has paid $500 million to creators since they launched UAFN in Creator Economy 2.0 in March of 2023. They're showing no signs of slowing down their payouts as they increased payouts by 32.5% year over year for the time period of March to September.

However, Fortnite creative engagement as a proportion of total Fortnite engagement has actually declined, according to Fortnite GG, as Epic has launched more successful modes like reload. The questions we're exploring today are around the Fortnite economy. What will it take for Epic's 500 million investment to turn into a thriving UGC ecosystem that creates more value than it costs?

Joining me today are two top Fortnite creators and influencers, Chad Mustard, a. k. a. MustardPlays, founder and COO of Jogo Studios, and Michael Ha, a. k. a. Birdo. Welcome to the podcast, guys. Happy to be here. Thanks for having me. So we have a lot to get through, so I want to jump right into it. Folks have already met Birdo.

He's been on the podcast before, around six months ago, and we're excited to have him back. But just a quick intro on Birdo, his maps have been played for 4. 7 billion minutes, which is about 1 percent of all time spent in Fortnite Creative since we began tracking in April of 2023. Birdo is the 15th most played UFN creator of all time and a longtime Fortnite influencer.

Chad Mustard, since this is your first time, or I should say MustardPlays, since this is your first time on the podcast, I was wondering if you could take us through your Fortnite journey and introduce yourself.

MustardPlays: Sure. My Fortnite journey begins when, uh, Save the World came out. I started playing back then, mostly because I do have a family relation that helped build Fortnite.

His name was Donald Mustard, and my other brother Jeremy as well, he was involved. At the executive level at Epic and I was just started streaming at the time and I thought it was, uh, would be fun to stream my, the game that my brothers were working on. And, uh, so I got to save the world and then Battle Royale came out was a huge success.

And we, I just continued to grow with that audience side, but I didn't grow very fast because I wasn't good enough at the game and I also wasn't really like funny or anything. So I wasn't like. Getting a huge audience. So I was kind of thinking about quitting the content creation and then creative mode came out.

So this was, we're talking about UV offense today, but creative mode was the first iteration of it. It was super basic tools to build games in Fortnite. And I decided to move my content creation over to that because no one else was really, and I figured I could maybe grow an audience there. And it was a good decision.

And I, really started to grow just learning how to build. I had never built anything in the past and I started to learn how to be more artistic, et cetera, and kind of became a, a leader in the space of Fortnite creative. So then UEFN came out and I was kind of at the top of the game, at least when it came to content creation.

I reached out to Typical Gamer to stream the launch of UEFN and I never even talked to him before. I just reached out randomly on Twitter and was like, Hey, do you want to do this? It'd be fun for the release. And he said, yeah, let's do it. And we, we streamed together. It was like instant, like connection friends.

Like he's just like such a cool laid back guy. And we, after the stream, we started talking like, what if we started UEFN studio. And at that time for UEFN, I couldn't actually earn any money in the space because my brothers worked at Epic. So, but with the new, the new rules with UEFN where the team leader could do whatever they wanted.

And so we started talking about, uh, working together as him as the team leader and me as like, as a partner in that, but not the team leader. And that ended up not mattering because Donald retired and all, all of my family members were no longer working at Epic. So that freed me up. And, but, but throughout that time we started creating maps.

 Andre actually, so typical gamer just dropped right in. And he said, I want to learn the tools. And he built a map all on his own with me, just kind of saying, Hey, you should maybe try this and that, but he did a hundred percent of it. And. It was called Fortnite and it was really successful.

I think it has over 10 million plays just on that. It was a gun game. It's really fun, but don't go look at the project now. It's just a complete disaster mess, we just kept building from there. We made an only up map, which was very successful, nearly 30 million plays on that, and eventually we ended up, sorry, we just kept rolling and making maps.

And, , we didn't really launch our company publicly until May of this year, but we had been making maps for a year at that point. So, and I think now we have, I don't even know what the updated numbers are, over 350 million plays across maps and, we're consistently top, I don't know, definitely, I can say top 10 creator in the space.

David: Sometimes it's as high as 5 or 2. I looked up, I looked up typical gamer's, like, name under it, and I think he was number 12, overall, in terms of, Okay, okay. In terms of total time played, so, so that's just like looking back, you know, 18 months, so if he came online, like, you know, 6 months into UEFN, then, you know, he probably would be top 10 for the time period that he was actually building maps.

MustardPlays: Yeah, well, I'm not sure. I don't really, I follow our daily stats. I don't always follow our overall stats. I'm just kind of keeping an eye on things. So, it's hard to like keep up. I don't really, , It's a very interesting space when it comes to, Tracking numbers and what's important at the time. And I'm sure we'll get into it, but yeah, that's kind of my fortnight journey.

David: Top 12 and top 15 is insanely successful. I mean, there's 30,000, creators on the platform. So, you know, Kudos to you guys for, for being, such huge contributors to, to the Fortnite ecosystem. So I want to sort of ask a question. You guys were both Fortnite influencers originally, right? You both, got into this through making content and then became game developers.

I'm curious, do you, is this just by coincidence that you've both been successful? And like, how do you guys, Like think of yourselves. Do you think of yourselves as developers? Do you think of yourselves as content creators? What is the sort of mentality that you take toe to your work?

Birdo: I'd go first. I don't think it's a coincidence at all.

I think there's so much So much parallel between content creation and map developing, the obvious ones, the thumbnail. So like, just like YouTube, but like the hook of a video is the most important. Your first five seconds, the game is the most important, obviously editing. And like the technical details aren't the same, but like the gameplay, the flow, you're always thinking about like the experience throughout the whole video, throughout the whole game.

So I think there's a lot of parallels when you're thinking about the viewer, the player, that like, It's, it's the same mindset, high level that like help you for games too, but the technical stuff, yeah, it's different.

MustardPlays: I would say, I mean, I definitely agree with Berto on that. It's the comparison between like YouTube and UGC in general is it's a really good analogy.

And then we could get into all that, but I think really one thing that separates. Even just like the Fortnite YouTubers versus like some other influencer coming in is we really understand the player base. And that is key. I think to game development is when you understand what the player base, the player wants, you can make a game that they'll play and come back and play over and over.

And I think, you know, Berto has done a great job with his map and finding what the player wants with it, with the. The mini games and that's something that we've really focused on is trying to find what the player wants and sometimes we think we know what the player wants and it's not. And we take that out and we'll see improvements in our game as we really dial in what the player wants.

So I think both in having like typical gamer myself, we've been in this space for seven, eight years. It's helped us just to understand the player base and I've seen other content creators try to make maps. It doesn't always work. It's, it's not just a magic, like, Oh, I've got a huge audience and they're all going to go play the game, but the game doesn't hit the player base and it just doesn't work.

So, I think that's something that both Berto and Jogo have, you know, we figured out what the player wants and you can see the results.

Birdo: I also think from an analytical standpoint is like improving. So I'm, I know Jogo's team does that. They had a whole talk about like looking at like the analytics of like, you know, um, just everything to like looking at 49 GG every day, looking at patterns, what's trending, like that's super important for videos too.

So same thing, like playing the discover game and tick tock and 49 discover is super important.

David: Yeah. It makes sense in terms of like revenue generation. Do you think that. That is the content creation sort of, I guess, do you think of yourself as a portfolio of content or are you thinking of yourselves as developers who are leveraging content to drive players to your game?

Birdo: For me, it's definitely the second. So content creation has always been a side job. So before this as an engineer at Microsoft, so I always want it to be my side job. Because when it's like, when it becomes a job and like you have to wake up to do stuff, it's like awful. So, but now, now I use it. Now that, now that this is my main job, I use it as a tool to promote my map.

So like my, my update videos and my constant content creation is more so to promote my map now.

MustardPlays: Yeah, I, it's, it's a little different for us. Cause there's, I'm a content creator. So as typical gamer and for me, it has switched from, I'm a content creator first. And developer second to now I'm a developer first and a content creator.

Second, like my, I produce way less content now than I used to, because I mean, we've got over 20 people on our team. Now it takes a lot of work to manage in the build and all of that. Versus Andre, he is continuing to create a ton of content. And I would say his time, I don't know exactly his time split.

It'd probably be 50, 50. Like he's, he's doing a lot of work on Jogo and a lot of work on his content as well. And that is on purpose because he is such an amazing marketing arm for Jogo in our projects. And so it is luckily we've, you know, him as an influencer has, has really helped. And I've been able to take a step back and focus.

Pretty much, you know, 95 percent of my time on the, on Jogo. Um, so we, we are committed to growing this to what we want to. And, but yeah, so I would say now I'm definitely a developer first.

David: Yeah, it sounds like it. So, so I'm curious. so mustard on your side, like when, when you were working with typical gamer, you know, I think we spoke 18 months ago about when you guys were first talking about forming this, the studio.

18 months later, you launched your first publicly available map, or at least publicly branded map as Jogo, Pit Legends. I'm curious, what were some of the things that needed to come together in those 18 months in order for you guys to come forward and say, okay, we're Jogo now?

MustardPlays: Yeah. Oh, there, I mean, it's a long story, but really, I don't know if you've ever read the book.

Good to great. It's, it's great book. You should read it for anyone who's in the business world. It's. It's great. But, he, he has this analogy in the book about getting the right people on the bus before you're ready to like, go. And that was kind of what we were doing. We had really big goals, of what we want it, want Jogo to become, and we, we needed to make sure we had all the right people on the bus.

And it took a little while to figure out, you know, we're talking a lot to a lot of different people at the time and, and even figuring out if we could work together long term between me and, and typical gamer and Mark, our CTO and, you know, who would we hire and bring on? And like, what could we really, like, we, we, we started building our team before we were officially out.

 And it just took a little bit of time to like, make sure we had the right team and the right processes. And, and if we could even make money doing it, and luckily we had some huge successes, um, I mean, we have a red versus blue map that is continuing to produce a ton of revenue for us. And, you know, that has really helped us to grow a lot faster than we thought we would, but really getting just every, getting all of that situated properly to have the right foundation set before we're like, publicly, we're just, we're this company. And we're, we want to do these big things, we'd rather have it at foundation set first before saying, we're going to be this big company versus we can come out and say, Hey, we're already well on, on our way.

Cause we, we'd seen other people say, we're going to do these big things. And then nothing happened. And we didn't, we didn't really want to be that. And so we, luckily, you know, we just kept, we just, we started producing. We didn't want to wait to, or a year to start producing, but we just started producing right away on under typical gamers brand.

And luckily those really have done well. And now we can start producing as Jogo and building that up. But, you know, just, we just want to make sure we had everything in place.

David: Birdo, how about you in terms of, you know, company formation? I know that you sort of, you know, just were dabbling and then all of a sudden you're like, Oh yeah, I quit my, my Microsoft day job.

But what was it like sort of putting a company together?

Birdo: Yeah. So for me and my partner, Dagwami, so he's a creator just like us, he has like 2. 5 million plus followers. And, yeah, it just all came super fast. We're pretty financially literate. So it's like, all right, we need to make an S Corp. So we made our S Corp together.

We got a lawyer to have our contracts to tax taxes, but definitely we, we are in the same boat as like Jogo. Cause I remember when talking to Andre, they're talking about, they're using tools that I literally used on Microsoft Confluence, Jira. I was like, wow, they're taking this seriously. I don't think any other studio has taken it this seriously.

Those are like legit, like. That's what I was using. I was like, Oh wow. I know no UEFN studios doing that. So we're not like, our plan isn't to like have a company like that, but we do for our, how our company structure is like, I do, I was doing all the verse before and some, some of the technical stuff I can't do is like, um, 3d modeling, skeletal meshes, all that is a completely foreign thing to me.

So for us, we, we have a studio, we have like a year contract with them where they'll get a percentage revenue share. And we're happy with that. So like, if things were to end, you don't have like employees, you know. To like worry about, no, no, like that's, uh, yeah, that's how ours is. So if our mouth goes down, it's like, all right, well, wait, I mean, everyone, everyone's kind of a little in it.

So that's how our company is kind of formed.

MustardPlays: And I think it was just, I think it's smart. Honestly, there's, it's an interesting space. It's definitely a risk to build a studio that is big. And I think about that a lot. Sometimes I'm like, man, I could just, you can just take this revenue and be cool. And like, it'd be a lot, a lot less stress.

And. You can focus on just a few things and really kind of cruise. But for us, we're thinking outside of Fortnite, we want to build things that are going to be bigger, you know, maybe in Roblox, maybe as our own games, maybe building an IP that. Could be on Netflix or wherever. So like we, we want to build this out to be something, you know, a lot bigger than the Fortnite ecosystem, although the Fortnite ecosystem is awesome.

 But it's a risk. It's definitely a risk. And I feel it some days when I'm going to bed.

David: And I feel like this is a really interesting question that I was going to bring up later, but we were talking about it now. So I'm curious what, how do you think about the opportunity set? Right? So there's, you know, you mentioned I could just keep this money, right?

So just, you know, invested in the stock market. You could reinvest it in making more games. You could reinvest it in other platforms. Like, I guess, what is your, how do you guys think about your options in front of you and which ones, you know, which ones are appealing and what have you tried?

Birdo: And, from our perspective, cause we're not starting a whole company, I think Dag and I have gotten so much money.

Like, I think they call it a windfall of money that we're, we're also financially literate. Like we said, set ourselves up where if anything were to go wrong, we're good for the rest of our lives. So now it's like, let's put a hundred percent into promoting marketing the next deals. So like, that's how we're thinking about it now.

Now it's like, all right, let's just put it all. Like we're going to fail and crash, or it's going to go well at this moment, at this point in time, like we've saved enough shelter, enough for taxes, have enough for our, you know, we're good. That's how we think about it.

David: I mean, it makes sense, but can, can you elaborate?

What do you, you sort of breeze through it? Like, what are you putting the money towards? Oh, yeah. Like putting your, sort of your nest egg aside, like what are you reinvesting into?

Birdo: Oh, yeah. So for us, we are, we're, we're working with the studio for our giving them a percentage share. We're also investing in another map with another creator and giving him a percentage share.

And, we put a lot of it into marketing and we market ourselves too. So that's. That's usually where our money goes for this map. And then there are some other cool stuff though, in the future that I can't really talk about that we're also putting money in for, but specifically to this map, like we're trying to keep this map as strong as it can.

So hopefully it becomes as big as roadblocks and we have a staying point right there. And our map is like position in a way where we can have like really cool brand deals that most maps can't at the moment. , And I, I hope it's like that, but there's probably going to be some more maps that are similar to like that can do what we do, but at the moment, there's not as many that can provide a non combat game and still feel natural to the game itself.

So that's, that's what we're investing in, keeping this map as strong as possible.

MustardPlays: Got it. Yeah, they're one of the few maps I've seen that have actually done integrations. And I mean, there's, I've seen a few other try it, but not, not great. And so kudos to you for figuring that out.

Birdo: It's really cool to see. It's funny because typical gamer and I, like before Jogo is, I knew about Jogo. We were, we did this NFL thing together and I told him like, I think this is the future of brand deals. Like, uh, I really think like integrating into a map, even like just putting an ad, like is like, is going to be it.

And I think our map is like position and now like it's coming full circle. So in November, you'll see a new one with mustard and you'll see another one in December and you'll see another one in January and they're all like pretty cool brands. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that's cool. Yeah.

MustardPlays: We're we're, I agree. I think that's really where the ad side of things should be going is more integrations into where the players are, as opposed to just building their own experiences, but

David: That's, that's a whole other topic.

 We're going to talk about this. I do want to spend some time on it, but, but maybe let's, let's do that next. I'm curious, sort of how you're thinking about, capital allocation for your company, Jogo.

MustardPlays: Yeah, so we've invested a lot in our team right now. Like we, we wanted to have all the tools we could to build anything we want.

 So, I mean, we have modelers, we have a UI guy, we have, we have six verse developers, people that. They didn't know verse before coming in, but they are just really high level engineers that could come in and versus pretty easy to look, to learn. So, I mean, gosh, our, our lead on. The pit, our pit of legends map.

He, that was his first day. We're just like, start building. And he's like, Hey, and he just, he picked it up and he picked it up quick. I mean, with, within a week he was doing stuff that I had never seen before. So there's, for us was finding the high, high level talent that could come in and be able to do anything because for us.

The reason we're investing so much in this space is not just because of the opportunity currently. I get it's a great opportunity right now as you know, when you're in the top 20, you're making enough money to, like we said, like you're set for life. If you want, but we're also making enough money right now to invest in the future.

So we're really excited about the future of where verse can go. If you listen to, Tim Sweeney talk about it, like his, his vision is to bring verse and UEFN and coupling it with unreal engine to where we could easily go and be like, Oh, Let's take Birdo's Map and release it on Steam. Just copy and paste it and release it on Steam.

Like, that is super interesting to me, where I want to build a studio that can just go and easily make games in Unreal Engine with, through using Verse, and then we can communicate with Fortnite, we can communicate with what other games are out there being made. You can have cross You got an economy that talks to each other and like it, to me that's a really exciting future of the, you know, quote unquote metaverse.

And that's what we're trying to build is a studio that can grow with UEFN Yes. But then also grow outside of UFN when those tools integrate with Unreal Engine. Like that is really exciting to me. So we're investing a lot of our capital in that. And then also we're starting to build out this new ip, which is sort of like an anime.

And we'll be investing in, in building that outside of Fortnite too. So there's, there's a lot that we're planning on. We still have lots of other areas we could invest in. We're looking at like Roblox. We're looking at Roblox. That's going to, just like what I was saying before, you have to understand the player base in Fortnite.

We have to understand the player base in Roblox too. And that's something we, we need a little bit more research into that before. I'm really willing to jump into it, but that's something we're going to invest in. But building out our IPs in that space as well. So there's lots of, there's really a million ways we can go this way.

But right now we're building the team, making sure our processes are. There and that's where a lot. I mean, that's a lot. It's a lot of capital to have a team that size, but, that's really where we're at.

David: On the topic of making money. I wanted to transition over to a little bit of, you know, looking at the 4 night economy a bit.

We had Sergei Galyankin from who was previously at epic. Overseeing monetization on the podcast, and he shared that he didn't believe in engagement based payouts. Do you guys have a perspective on why he might have felt that way, or what alternative he might have had in mind?

Birdo: I don't know about an alternative, but I think it's a pro and con.

I, I don't know if this, like, relates as much to what he, I don't know the exact reasoning behind those words, but like, Once like people saw the payouts, there was a lot of bad actors. Like, I don't know how much there was in creative 1. 0, but like, it's exponential now. Like you'll see like really bad.

You're like, why is this map doing so well? And then it's like, Oh, I see this tick talk saying you get free V bucks playing it. It's like, Oh, okay. Well, nothing you can do about that. So I think when there's this kind of, when it's so easy to make math, like, which is a good thing to like, it's so easy to jump in, but it's also like, creates such bad actors who will literally cheat.

Make the system bad. Like I think we've all, maybe you guys have seen videos, but classic video is they'll say like, Oh, this is, they'll like be on a grind rail and get like Photoshop you getting like 2 million XP and getting to like level 100 in a second. And like those maps still are there. Nothing's changed.

Like those don't get banned. So yeah, I think that's why I would think like this ease of engagement based payouts would be bad, but it's also a good thing. That's my perspective.

MustardPlays: My, my guess is he's. Saying that because it's such a huge investment and like it's a huge risk. I mean, Epic is taking a huge risk on this where they could just make a ton of money off of Battle Royales, but a little bit more effort into, you know, developing live events and these other things that really built Fortnite as opposed to investing.

What is it? 500 million dollars in us. And, so I think that is probably why versus saying, Hey, yeah, here's the tools and you can earn money by selling things in your map, like Roblox, right? Like people would buy V Bucks in your map and spend it in your map for pay to win type things or for skins or whatever.

That's probably a safer bet for Epic, as opposed to doing engagement payouts. , but. I also think roadmap to the success there would be a lot slower in or for Fortnite in general. And I think Tim has watched Roblox grow over 15, 20 years. I don't remember how many years it is, but it's many, you know, many, many years.

They've gotten to a point now where their system of Roblox, et cetera, works really well. And I think Tim wants to accelerate that. He wants to bring in better developers. I have people making studios in this space and growing much quicker pace. So I think engagement payouts makes more sense. I think long term Epic is going to have to find other ways to monetize.

Whether it's, maybe it's not pay to win like Robux are, but they're going to have to give us some way to monetize within maps. I think for long term sustainability, but I think for now the engagement payouts are accelerating the growth of the platform. And, and yeah, I think that's why, but I, I also see it as, I mean, gosh, before UAFN, even before UAFN creative mode was almost half of the place.

On fortnight. So it's also, I do get it where they're like, well, we, we got to pay those that are bringing so many play or maintaining the player base. So I agree with the engagement payouts, but I think long term they're going to have to have other monetization options.

David: So I want to throw out some alternative models from the UGC space and just see how it lands with you guys, because, you know, to your point, they are, they are paying a lot of money to the to the ecosystem.

And there are other models out there. I'm just curious, from your guys perspective, would any of these resonate with you? So number one is Minecraft, where there's a creator program that you have to apply for, and only a few hundred creators are allowed in. But they're competing for, you know, the same pool of, of revenue.

So, you know, rather than 30, 000, you're looking at, you know, 300. You know, roughly creators. And so like thinking about that same pool of money, you know, if it's still 300 million, but you're competing over with 300 other creators who are, you know, approved and go through an application process, what, what's your, what do you guys think about that?

I mean, I think that'd be better for Berto and I.

Birdo: Yeah, but there are, but like beginning at creative 1. 0, there was literally solo devs, you know, that made it, you know, I think Panvil's 2v2 Matt was the first map, but he was a solo dev and now he has this whole team and it's Yeah, that, that does cut out like kind of the heart of the first creative at the beginning.

So I'm not sure if they want to do that for me, but like, I mean, I don't think that that'd be the approach that would alienate a lot of people.

MustardPlays: I think, I think the whole point of UGC is not. Exclusivity. It is, it is this hope and dream that you can make it big, right? My M1 map, if it takes off, will change my life forever.

Same thing with YouTube. If I have a viral video on YouTube, that's going to change my life forever. I can quit my job and make, be a content creator, or I can quit my job and make video games in Fortnite. If you restrict it to 300 people, there's no hope, right? It's just, it's really just an exclusive dev community.

It gets to, you know, we can all get rich together. So, I disagree with that approach. I think I like the open, the openness of hope and, and that's where you're going to find those, those gems. Once in a while, someone's going to make a game that just pops off and does really well. And, I mean, that's what happened with, with you, Berto, right?

Like you found a, you found a recipe that worked. And man, it popped off and it's just so, and it's still doing so good. You know, it's got this. Consistent player base. Um, same thing with us. We, we just were able to figure out something that worked and, and now we can do bigger and better things. And I think there's anyone out there can do that.

And if you restrict it to 300 people, then you're, you're not going to get what. You're not going to see the success that YouTube has had.

Birdo: I agree.

David: All right, next model, cosmetics competition. So franchises like Warframe, Dota, and Team Fortress 2 had competitions where creators could submit their designs and the winners would be incorporated into the game and receive a revenue share for the cosmetics sales.

Birdo: Ah, well, that sounds like a marketing thing. I think that would be nice on top. It kind of feels like what they're doing with like Lego and TMNT. It's kind of like. , some, it's like who can make the best TMNT map and like, yeah, they get, they get a little feature already at the, for like the first two weeks it's out, but yeah, I don't think it would replace what we have now, but it could be cool to like add on, like who can make the best with whatever this is, which is, they kind of already do with Lego and TMNT in my opinion.

It's just like, yeah.

David: Well, and that's not necessarily to replace either. This is like, just, what do you think about this as a, as a, you know, comparable? I think it would be cool.

MustardPlays: I think, I think they should. Have more, ability to have additional skins, additional backblings, dances, or whatever that can be, um, that we could sell in our own maps and maybe, uh, maybe it transfers over.

I don't know. That'd be cool. One thing we, I mean, one thing we're trying, we we've modeled three new characters for our new map. And if we can keep growing the player base on that, I, my hope is eventually, I want Epic to release some of those. Right. And like, do like some sort of collaboration. And I think it would be cool to see Epic doing more collaborations with maps that are already there, as opposed to just bringing in some random celebrity.

Although I mean, I hope Epic continues to do that. I think it's a great model. But I hope they start doing that with maps as well, as people start to develop their own IPs. And that's our hope. And one of our goals with. Our legends IP is to create characters that Epic would want to put in the game or that we could do, we can go drop a character in Call of Duty or something like, like, that's, that is something that we are hoping to do.

And yeah, I would, I would love that.

David: So how about you mentioned steam mustard? So, so. You know on steam anyone can make a game but and they can put whatever price they want on it Uh, why doesn't what about if you know fortnight had paid content where you could make the premium content that you're making right?

Like I've I checked out pit legends like you're doing You know, you're doing you're putting a lot of work into that. You've got a roguelike system. You've got got hero system like you can pick your hero. So legend You Oh, legend. Sorry. Come on, David. I'm just kidding. I'm speaking it from like a gaming perspective.

MustardPlays: I know, I'm just teasing. I say hero a lot in a typical game where he's like, just say legends. Alright. But yeah, so like, so what do you think? I think a system like that would be a really hard sell on Fortnite. I think it would be interesting, I would love to see it tried, like a 5 game or something.

I think someone like Birdo or us could pull that off with our audiences and saying I don't think, I don't think just a random game would work. I think you'd have to have an audience that you're like, hey, go pay 5 in V bucks or whatever to get into this game. And I think it could work. I mean, you even look at Roblox, they have like a paid section, right?

And those, those games do okay, but they're also. Nowhere near the top of the lists of games played. I think it'd be similar. I think I'm more interested in Fortnite saying a free to play model and, and then bringing the games out into the Epic, the Unreal engine system, which could include steam, which could include the Epic game store or whatever.

And that's where I see the future of development in this space is saying, okay, well, now we're going to take. Our brand, the pit, we're going to bring it out, make a bigger game around it. And then we're going to release it on steam and drive our audiences there. So that to me, it makes more sense in the long term.

And I think that's coming in the next five years, but, I think, I don't think, I don't think a paid version would work in fortnight, but I'd love to see it. Try it. I just don't think it'd work.

David: My, I feel like Epic might not want to like pass their players off to steam for monetization purposes. Right?

Like when they want to. Be like, well, sell your games on our platform. Instead,

MustardPlays: I don't know. Epic is traditionally a, an engine, right? That's that is Tim. Sweeney is an engine like mindset versus a game developer. And to them, they're like, as long as. You're building the game within Unreal Engine, they're getting a percentage of wherever, they don't care where you sell it, they don't care if you sell it on Steam or on Xbox or wherever, and if you're developing it within Unreal Engine, they're going to be getting a cut of that, and so I think they just want to see, Tim really is invested in the Metaverse idea of, and I think Verse is going to be what brings all of that together.

Eventually it's going to take a long time, but I think that is the goal. And so, I just don't, I don't, I think they would like to see it sold on Epic game store. I think in the end is they're an engine company and they, they don't want to be developing games. They want us to be developing games and then them getting a cut of it.

David: And so I guess, so to, to, to just piggyback off of that. So, you know, the question I want to ask is like, is 500 million enough, or is it too much? So, because if they want to, if they don't want to be making games anymore, they want other people to make making games and mustard your, you know, you said you have 20 employees, so, you know, just mental math. It's like 2. 5 million, 2 to 2. 5 million, annual salaries that you're paying. You need to be making a significant chunk of money on the platform. And so if they're paying 320 a year, 320 million a year, you need to have like almost 1 percent market share at all times just to break even, which is like You know, that, that, that means that you need to be like a top, you know, 20 developer all the time.

And so if only 20 developers can have, 20 employees or more, like, how are they going to have a large enough creator base to completely replace, you know, Battle Royale?

MustardPlays: That's a good question. I mean, I don't, I don't think UGC is necessarily about everyone being a, you know, 20 plus person studio. That's not what it's about.

And I don't think that's what the metaverse is about. YouTube, once again, we're gonna go back to YouTube. I think it's a perfect analogy. Not everyone's Mr. Beast, you know, a billion dollar creator. And there's, there's a, maybe there's five or ten creators in that whole space of millions and millions of people creating content that are in that echelon of making money, making business, etc., but there's little people like me. And I can make a fine living by myself, creating content on YouTube. And I think it's the same here. You don't have to be a top 20 to make a living in Fortnite creative. You could be, you might have to be top 100 to make a living. But, like you can quit your job and keep making games in, in Fortnite.

 So I, I don't know if that's the whole vision. I think 500 million is a lot of money. And I think to me, I mean, I, I, I, I'm this, there's so much bias in the statement. I think it's the right amount. Because there are people that are trying to do more. I struggle a little bit. I don't want to like call out anyone here.

I do struggle a little bit when it's like. A lot of the top maps are ones that have existed for five, six years, and they're just kind of, now there's making a ton more, and they're not really contributing to the space other than just maintaining, the player base that they've built for, for years as a practice map or whatever.

And I think, I think that's fine. I don't, I like, once again, I'm not like mad at those people. I don't think those people are contributing to the space much. but I think that will change in the coming years as more people are contributing in the space and more people are in the top 20 that are fresh and new, but yeah, I don't know, Birdo, what do you think?

Birdo: I, I, yeah, no, I think the latter part of your question is saying should the distribution distributions be like more spread out and I kind of don't agree with that.

Like, I think those top maps. Yeah, I agree. At the same time, like those maps don't change. And like, I don't want to like, put it like any, like this example for your red versus blue. But like, It's so funny because the first Red Roofs Blue did not change much besides the vending machines. Until typical gamers, Jogo pushed super red versus blue.

And now it's like, now their map is trying to copy the other version, like to keep up. So I, I think it's like, I think this number is good as much as Epic can and like to push people to like, make the best maps. And when people have that drive, like to be the top, like, I don't, I think it would be bad if it was say, okay, you're at the top.

We're actually going to split down. Now you're going to get less money, like a less percentage. And we're going to like, give it to the less put, like, I think you want to be incentivized to make the best possible. I want to make something that's better than the battle Royale. I want to beat it and I want to get paid like deservedly.

So I think, I think it's only good, good competition, like to try to be at the top, to try to beat those maps that have been there for so long. And I think, I think they deserve it. They, they invest, they like a lot of players, like they don't come to play Fortnite, they come to play like the pigs that is, that is their Fortnite.

And for me, I like, that was me. Cause I play Fortnite all the time. Like I'm so lazy. I don't want to drop down, get weapons. Like there's these practice maps. Like that is what I lived in. So it's like, I think they deserve their spot, but they, it's also good that these payouts are like, so strong to like bring in the competition.

MustardPlays: And I agree with you on that, Bruno. I think. And honestly, one of the things I've, I maybe have a little bit of complaint about is, um, Epic has been pushing down a lot of these top maps, like combat maps, like, and I think it's actually hurt the player base in general. Like it's, it's kind of when they take those top maps, whatever, top 10, which are mostly combat maps and push them way down in discovery.

I think it's brought all of the plays down for all of the maps. Versus I think a lot of that when they were promoting those top maps at the top plays were way higher for those maps, but it was also higher for like the other whatever top 50 maps, they were getting way more plays to because people were in the ecosystem playing, playing their pit or playing red versus blue, and then going and trying other maps too.

And so I think Epic has made a mistake in trying to diversify the games and in doing that, they have reduced plays for all the maps, by, by trying to bring other game modes up to the top. Those game modes aren't getting more plays, they're getting less plays, I think, in general. But, yeah, I agree with you, Birdo.

I think it is, they are, I, I hate to say no one's deserving of, you know, how much effort goes into making a red versus blue or making a pit or whatever. There is more behind the scenes than people know and, yeah, I think it's fair. I think it is fair. I think the, the maps that get the place should get the, get the pays.

David: What do you, what do you guys think is, so, so you mentioned like, you know, they're pushing these maps further down in discovery, but they're still quite popular. So what's, what do you think is enabling them to be, continue to be successful, you know, five years later without pushing a ton of updates and, And keeping players engaged.

Birdo: So these are like, kind of like old maps that still have like that 500 CCU kind of right?

David: I was, I mean, I was thinking like, you know, go go to the pit, you know?

Birdo: Oh, okay. Like for those, like, yeah, that's, that's, those players have been, so a lot of those maps were actually like epic LTMs, like super featured, like when there was only like six game modes, like there was like a go go to there too with the VR.

So like people know it so well. And. People just, I mean, four nights battle royale, people like fighting and those games are like constant, constant fighting, which is something that some people want, they don't want to go through the battle royale, like me, where I'm just, I just want to fight people. So

David: So I think, but like, you know, Mustard innovated on, on the pit, right. He introduced some new mechanics that make the game a lot more interesting. I think, and presumably you've got this market signal that says like, this is the game that people want to play. Why haven't we seen? Some other creators come in and make it make a better version of the pit or make a better version of the pit and be successful.

MustardPlays: Yeah, they've tried. There's wow, there's a lot of reasons, but I think really in the end, one of the mechanics in the system that helps is favoriting maps. You can favorite a map and you can pull up your list and you can see these are my top favorite maps and you can just go and play it. So, and then also your most recently played.

It's very important to the ecosystem where you can see the first three things on your home bar are the most recent maps you've played. And so people will come in, they come in to play the pit, they come in to play Red vs. Blue, they come in to play their mini games or whatever every day. And it's always at the top of their list or it's always in their favorites.

They don't need discovery necessarily to continue to build on their player base. And they've had five, six years of getting favorites. Like so people that. May have left fortnight, but come back to play the new chapter two update tomorrow. They're going to still have in their favorites, a pit of a favorited.

Four years ago, and they're probably, and you're going to see a lot of plays go up for those legacy maps because they have legacy favorites. And, and then there's also the recommendation section. I think it's pretty strong. I think it's a little big, but there are like, uh, there's ways to build a player base.

And I think that's what the pit. Red vs. Blue, or even newer maps like our Red vs. Blue, or those mini games, like you have this player base, you can slowly build it through favoriting, through liking, through, you know, making sure you're always having marketing beats to bring them back to their most recent plays.

And that's how you can build. A strong player base that's not dependent on the first page of discovery and I think that's what those maps have done. And it's really hard to do that is a really, that's why you've only seen two or three of us be able to break into that top 20 consistently. It takes a strong marketing arm and consistent updates versus someone that has these legacy players.

David: You mentioned sort of your sense that them, you know, bubbling up newer types of content like tycoons and simulators, a lot of these Roblox genres has been detrimental to the platform. And, and it's kind of sounds like it's sort of a blunt instrument that they're using in order to get people to play more diverse content and have that featured, like, ideally, you'd have, you know, more targeted systems that if someone's playing those types of games, that's what they see.

Whereas if you're only interested in playing battle maps, you never see those, those games. They're moving to that. Yeah, exactly. I think they're working on that. It's, it's probably much easier said than done otherwise Epic would have done it already. , but I think another angle is that potentially that there's just not an audience or at least not a big audience for those types of games currently.

And if there was, then you wouldn't see, then it would be beneficial to the ecosystem for them to be highlighting those games, right? You'd see more engagement. Across the board. There are creators who have audiences who are interested in playing those types of content, but they're mostly on Roblox right now.

So I'm curious, like, do you know any influencers who've thought about, you know, coming over to YouTube, or do you think that would be an interesting approach for Epic and something that would benefit the influencers as well?

MustardPlays: I, so yes, there are a lot of YouTubers that are thinking about it. A ton.

 But I don't think it's, I don't think that Roblox. People coming over would translate yet. Not because it's Fortnite versus Roblox or anything. I think it's mostly because you can't play Fortnite on mobile. , that's the reason and 80 percent of the players in Roblox are mobile and that's why it's more casual gameplay on Roblox is because you're pulling up your, your phone or your, your iPad and kids are able to play casual games like tycoons or power defense or, or whatever, , versus Fortnite is PC and console where they want to shoot, they want to sweat, they want to have competition, , it's just a different, , Mindset when you're playing on your console or on your PC, then when you're casually playing on your, on your mobile device and until Epic solves their problems with Apple and Google, I don't think that's going to translate very well.

That doesn't mean there's not an audience for RPGs or there's not an audience for tycoons. There is clearly an audience for tycoons and for some of these other game modes, I don't think they should be at the very top of discovery. Because it is more of a mobile casual experience as opposed to a fortnite audience is, is a combat centric that they come to play battle royale and they want similar experiences.

Yeah, that's my, that's my answer there. It's a, I think when mobile is more accessible to fortnite, it would be Those, those will translate much better.

David: Yeah, I mean, I, I used to play Fortnite on my iPad and it was awesome. It was. Like, it, it was awesome because it was also just a new way to play the game that made it feel novel. And I could just play wherever I went, which was cool too.

MustardPlays: Yeah, if we, if that had never happened, if, if Epic had never picked that fight. I think creative mode would be much bigger right now. Birdo, anything to add on your end?

Birdo: No, I, I mean, just from as a creator's perspective, I feel like doing the reverse would be so hard.

So like trying to bring someone like having Fortnite mechanics in Roblox, because there are Fortnite games with like building and stuff in Roblox, like I wouldn't, I still wouldn't be able to do that. So I'm thinking about the vice versa, like It'd still be a tough sell. Like, why would they just not stand what they love the Roblox tycoons?

They got it nailed down. So like, even if I was like, like always promoting Roblox tycoons, I don't even think they would come to Fortnite.

David: Yeah. There's an average of 6, 000 players playing Fortnite in Roblox, I just looked this up recently. So just a, just a fun fact, like I'd be, I'd be like a top 20 game on Fortnite.

MustardPlays: Yeah, I think there, I think there are, there is a space though in fortnight for things like, , not like, gosh, I always get confused, like role playing versus RPG is like, it's like a Brookhaven or something, a place you can hang out in fortnight, like a party or royale, but done better than party royale.

I think there's a place for that. And I think there's place for like, man, if someone can right now, some of the bigger games, like, blocks fruits, it doesn't really work because of our limitations and memory and stuff, but I could change really fast as soon as they can have cross map persistence and.

Stuff like that could be really cool. And that's going to open up the possibility for really cool, different game modes that I think the Fortnite audience would still gravitate gravitate to you. It's just going to take some time.

David: So when you say cross map persistence, you mean like in order to create a, RPG like blocks fruits, you would need to have multiple maps that are you're sending, like after level one, you go to a different map and play level two and you go to play level three.

Gotcha. Yep. That's super interesting. So on the topic of like looking to the future at Epic's roadmap, what are some features that you're particularly excited about that's going to unlock, you know, new games that you want to make? Or actually, or just maybe analytics or anything else outside of the, in the broader meta?

Birdo: I know one feature is going to benefit us a lot, which is like, how their favorites in the system. Now you can like follow creators and that's just really huge for both of us. Cause they, you have typical gamer mustard and then for us, it's like me and dag and And the cool thing they were talking about is like, when we post an update for mini game, so usually we're just dependent on like the algorithm, but now when you follow a creator and their maps, like, it'll be at the top when they make an update.

So like for our mini game box, we will literally like be at the top saying, Hey, this map just got updated. So like, we don't have to like rely on discovery and the thumbnail change to like gravitate, like, Oh, there's a new mini game, like they will know. So I'm excited for that. Yeah. That's a big one.

David: Is that connected? So you said, is that connected to creator profile or is that a separate feature?

Birdo: It's connected to it. So the, the, so the, the creators you follow and like the maps they like choose to have, like you'll get updates on those. Like it's kind of like following that.

MustardPlays: Okay.

David: That's interesting. Cause when I saw creator profile, like what I imagined was like a description of who you are and like what games you've made, which in my mind I was thinking like, that's not how people play games.

They play like whatever's in front of them and whatever shows up in the recommendation system. So

MustardPlays: I'm excited because it's going to be like, it's going to be like subscribing to a channel on YouTube. And I assume there'll be like a subscription feed or like, yeah, new, new updates from your From your follow, who you follow kind of thing.

It'd be cool. That's great.

David: Yeah, I think building loyalty is really important and something that's been missing on the platform so far.

MustardPlays: So for me, there's a, there's quite a few things I'm excited for in the future. Um, when it comes to like the tool set, uh, for one, I think will be huge is the custom item feature where, and that'll be big, I think for you guys too, Berto.

This is huge for us, for our legends map. Is you can create custom items, which will include custom weapons. And that that's gonna really change things, to be able to not just rely a hundred percent on what Epic's giving us for weapons. That'll be big. I'm also really excited. What is the system Birdo that they're seeing graph.

Thank you. So I'm really excited about seeing graph. I think seeing graph is going to give us way more control over our maps that you can control each individual piece. Reverse, which is a huge deal. Like for now we're like relying on some really late kind of lame systems to have like total control.

Right. But scene graphic is the ability to control everything through coding, which I think is a huge deal. And it'll be a big deal for you guys too, when that releases. I, I love, I mean, gosh, there's so many things like they have new physics, tools coming out, which will be really cool. But persistence to me needs a big overhaul and that is what is probably the biggest thing I know they're working on is that like we just talked about the cross map persistence that just opens up so much.

And then giving us just more control over what we can persist inverse is. It can change everything and like, in what games we can make, we can make RPGs, you can make bigger experiences as opposed to now we're just, we're so restricted in our little tiny 100, 000 memory islands and what you can do, like, I bet you guys are having to delete stuff all the time in your map to make room for new game modes.

Yeah, every week, every week, and it is so frustrating when it's like, man, I wish I could just just do what I want and like, that is frustrating. And that's actually is 1 of the questions I asked epic. I know this is a, maybe it's something we want to talk about, but epic is committed to making. Fortnite battle royale in and I asked when they really announced that at the, I think it was a GDC.

I asked him, like, well, are you guys going to do it in under 100, 000 memory? And he was like, he's like, ask me in a year. And like, because that is really such a huge restriction for us is we can only build such like really small experiences. Like even our. It's like, it's almost a hundred K.

David: It's like, what's the reason for that restriction? Is it economical or is it just from a perspective?

Birdo: It's for, yeah, they said it's for performance just so it's performing well on mobile down those speeds in too long.

MustardPlays: And yeah, yeah. You can, you can get into the map quickly. Got it. Basically.

David: Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah. As opposed to downloading a hundred gig game.

MustardPlays: Which, at, which Fortnite is.

David: So. Yeah, I, I hopped into both of your guys games last night and I was just like waiting there for like four minutes for the whole. Game to download and, you know, compared to roblox where it's, you know, less than 10 seconds and you're in the next game. I just, that's just going to be, I think that is going to be a huge opportunity for getting people into more Fortnite creative maps as if they spend less time just loading into maps.

MustardPlays: Well, and if you can directly load into a map, like that's another big restriction. You have to download. Fortnite, which is whatever, I don't know how many gigs it is 80, 90 gigs. And then you have to load Fortnite, find the map. It's just not a great user experience versus Roblox. You can just link straight to the game and you're you're off to the races, basically.

And so that is a big thing. I know Epic's working on they were supposed to release it this year. A. A lighter, like they're reducing the memory for everything. So I am excited about that next year. They push it back to the next year, so that, that is going to be a big deal as well, where it's just less memory for fortnight in general, and that should free up space for us to in our maps, I hope.

David: What do you guys think about the, the IP portal that they've built that has Lego and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles in it right now? Is this a compelling proposition for you guys? Or, like, in, like, in theory and in practice, like, in theory, like, if they had a bunch of different IPs, you know, Marvel, Star Wars, All the things that people love about Fortnite, John Wick, uh, you know, if they had all those IPs available, would that be compelling as a proposition? And how do you feel about, you know, the, the current IP that they have?

Birdo: Yeah, no, they, they're asking the exact same question. Will you guys make master with these IPs? And, so far in creative, nothing has really like. Reach top 50, right? I don't think I've even seen any. So like for these, I don't know the IP, at least for the negative, the Lego is there's only like three weapons.

There's only three items. Like how much can you really do for TNT? Is it like, is it worth it to take the 15 percent cut for these TMNT mythics that aren't like really that great for the game? Like they are, they're really cool. I don't want to say they're not cool. That's just like for melee weapons. And you bet you're not mellowing too much.

Like there's not really that kind of combat. So it's like. I see like me personally, if they brought in the Star Wars or Marvel things, then, then you're like, we're talking a different ball game. Does Marvel mythics or like the Dragon Ball Z mythics that are like, really like change the gameplay and like people miss and love.

Like that's when I would be compelled at the moment. None of these have like, though, give me the urge of like, Oh, I need to go make this map now for TMNT for Lego for, uh, fall guys personally.

MustardPlays: Yeah. I feel the same way. It's just like, and as a YouTuber, you see what people respond to in your videos to people don't respond to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

They don't respond to Lego, maybe Lego a little bit more, for me at least, but mostly they only care about Marvel and, and the anime stuff. I think, yeah, Dragon Ball Z, My Hero Academia was okay. But even these, you know, well, we haven't had anything one piece. No, I know, but if they did, that would be huge.

Yeah, you're right. It'd be huge, so I think there's a place for these IPs. I don't know. Like, I think it's a really great opportunity for smaller creators to be seen and get, you know, one or 2000 concurrence fairly consistently for a few weeks or something, so I think it is good for that. I think it's not great for bigger teams unless they just released the, if they released it, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, mythics to everyone just for free.

I think everyone put it, you'd have, you'd have a game mode. I'd have it in red versus blue. Everyone would be putting it everywhere. So I don't know if it's always the best move for these IPs to like have it in their little walled gardens. As opposed to just being like, just give it to everyone and we'll market your stuff like crazy because, because we have to, if we don't, then someone else is going to do it and their maps going to pop off.

Birdo: The one positive thing about teams manager tutorials that Lego didn't do is like, like I said, Lego, like you're limited to like three weapons, like, or whatever, at least for TMNT, you could make an entire map and you still have their tool, like their devices. So I think that's definitely the better route to, to like, give us what we like, everything that we can use.

So we're not limited and then adding on top, but yeah, at the moment, there's just no reason from my perspective.

MustardPlays: Yeah. It's tough. It's tough because you're talking to. Two of the top creators here. And for us, 15 percent is a big deal versus smaller cater. 15 percent is like, I'll give you 15 percent of zero, you know, like whatever.

And it's like, if I can make a hundred dollars, I'll give you 15 percent when I'm not making anything. So I think it's great for the smaller community that wants to get noticed. And maybe something will pop off someday. Maybe someone makes just some insanely cool game mode. On these IPs that work, but for us, we've already found things that work.

So it's just hard. It's a hard sell for us.

David: Makes sense. So I feel like we could talk for, for hours. I know we gotta, we start to wrap things up. I wanted to give you one thing I wanted to ask is, I've seen some conversation about 1. 0 hours versus 2. 0 hours, and I wanted to get your guys perspective, like.

What does it mean? And also, is, what is the relationship in the broader ecosystem for, for these people who identify in both buckets or in either bucket?

Birdo: Yeah, I think Mustard has a more inside approach. This is from my outside perspective. I've, I never was part of the Creative 1. 0 community, like, didn't even interact with anyone, like, didn't even, like, and now, like, from my perspective, like, oh, there are some, like, people that are dreading Creative 2.0 when it came out, like, I don't want to say it's majority, but there's definitely like a good chunk of like, I see their vocal, like it's hard, like they're complaining now because like, they were so used to how it was built before and now it's like studios are coming in, like, how do you compete? Like Jogo just had like a live event.

Like, how do you compete with that as a solo dev? Like that doesn't know any verse. I don't, I don't think you can, like, you're competing the studios now. And so like, there, there's a good, there's a good chunk of people from creative 1. 0 that have actually given up because, but the benefit, but like at the vice versa 2.

0 has accelerated stuff where it's like, yeah, now people are having. Live events in fortnight, which is insane. And people are like building some of the craziest things. So I, that's how I see it from an outside perspective. Like there's just people that can't keep up because that's like, you need a, you need a code or you need a verse specialist.

You need a graphic designer. Now you need a marketing beforehand. I don't think that was all too necessary.

MustardPlays: Yeah, I think so. I mean, I I've been in the space since it was created and creative 1. 0 was more of a fun space. It was less of a business. It was more of like, this is fun. We're building something cool.

Maybe you make some money. Like, there was a huge audience. Just to go and build and just have fun in there, like, cause it was console, PC, all the, everyone could go in. It was, it was part of Fortnite. You go and you just build it and if you build something cool, everyone's going to like it on Twitter or whatever.

It was like, it was its own little community of fun, build competitions and, uh, whatever. And now it's become a business. And it wasn't a business before and people like Berto saying, you got studios now that are coming in or people that have the, the, like skill gap is huge with when you bring in programming, there was no, there's, there's, I mean, there was some people that could do the same things with devices before, but mostly there was not a huge skill gap other than like what you could think and, and what you could actually execute in fortnight creative now, the skill gap is, you know, massive.

Yeah. And it's hard when you see it. Whoa. Yeah. Jogo does a live event. We built that in less than two weeks. It was, oh man, it was crazy. I mean, that's a whole other burrow. We were down to the hour before, before we submitted the bill. Oh, and there was so many bugs. We're just like, please work, please, please work.

And luckily it worked, but it was crazy. But like no one else could pull that off without, like, luckily we had four of our programmers, like fixing it the last minute, but it would work and it worked. It's hard to compete with that, but also when UEFN came out, they said it has to be PC. So that cut out 80 percent of the audience and then you have to be 18.

So that cut out another 90 percent of the audience. And so, like, for me, I took a huge hit on YouTube because people were like, I can't even do this. So I'm out. I'm not going to do this anymore. And, so, a lot of people quit just, one, they weren't old enough, and two, they didn't have a PC that could run it.

And then, and then it's the skill gap. We lost another, like probably 80 percent of those people. Cause they're like, I just can't do this. Like these tools are so advanced versus, you know, playing, building on your controller. And, , so yeah, but there are some people in one point, 1. 0 or two, just like, this is cool.

I'm going to go, we're going to get into it. I'm going to learn how to do things, or I'm going to hire people that know how to do it. And they figured it out. I mean, I was a 1. 0 or like. And I was like, I don't even build anymore because I'm building a business. I miss it terribly, but I've hired people that can do it and now they can take my ideas and make cool things.

But it's, it is, it's a, it was, it's been a hard transition. So, I mean, in 3 or 4 years, you won't even hear 1. 0 anymore, but they, they, they, they feel it.

Birdo: Yeah. If you look at old YouTube videos, like I would cry if I had to do some of the stuff they had to do and then, and then on top of that, the bug fixing with like a hundred devices, like that you have to like work with and fortnight, like, I was like, I'm so glad I didn't make maps that bad, like, so glad, but

MustardPlays: Man, it was when it first came out, you couldn't even, you had to place props on the, like build grid, like it had, you couldn't get off it.

You couldn't even like free build. It was, and there was no triggers. There was no triggers. At all, when it came out where people were building these crazy fun experiences with zero triggers, I mean, it was, it took a lot of creativity, but it's a different type of thing than sitting down and programming, like actually typing out a string of words that make something happen versus like, Oh, I'm going to get this device to connect to that device, connect to this device to make this thing happen.

It's all programming, but when you actually have to type it out, I think that people were just like, I'm out of here. And it's tough when. You also don't have the marketing arm and the marketing is huge for us. So, so we can strip it down and then be like, now let's do another push. But it's, so it's a little, it's a little unfair for us because unfair is the wrong word.

We just, we have, we have advantages that we've worked hard to build beforehand and now we're using, , it can do that too. It just takes a long time. It's hard to do. Yeah. So it's, it is weird. Kind of fight, but I almost say fight. There's definitely a difference between UEFN developers and 2. 0, but I think it's necessary for the space to evolve.

David: Yeah, makes sense. Well, thanks for jumping on the podcast guys. It's been awesome to have two leaders in the Fortnite ecosystem, you know, sharing ideas, sharing your perspective. We like to ask what's the best way for folks to follow you. It's going to be hard to miss, I imagine, but, you know, where would you, you know, if you were to say, Where, where, where should people follow up with you?

Birdo: For me, TikTok, YouTube, Birdo, Twitter, Birdo Bro, and then LinkedIn, Michael Haw. That's, that one's a little different, but yeah, that's, that's all the places.

MustardPlays: Yeah, I mean, just Google Mustard Plays. You can connect with me on Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, whatever. Yeah.

David: Awesome. Sounds good. Well, thanks for coming, guys.

Birdo: Really enjoyed this conversation.

David: Thank you.

Birdo: Anytime.

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