On this episode, host David Taylor dives into one of the most eventful stretches the Fortnite Creative / UEFN ecosystem has seen in months. Epic has rolled out a wave of major updates — from monetization changes to discovery shifts — and today we unpack what they mean for creators, studios, and the future of the platform.
David is joined by two fantastic guests. Chad Mustard, COO of JOGO Studios, returns to the show after another breakout year as one of the top 10 developers on Fortnite by total plays. Chad brings a studio-level perspective on building hit experiences, navigating updates, and scaling inside a fast-evolving ecosystem. He’s joined by Jon Jungemann, better known as SleightedSloth, a leading creator in the Tycoon genre and one of the most thoughtful voices on systems design, monetization, and the economics of UEFN.
Together, the group breaks down the rise of Steal the Brainrot and what that breakout moment signals for developers — from production trends to player behavior to what “success” looks like in today’s marketplace. They also explore the wave of M&A activity beginning to emerge inside Fortnite Creative and what kinds of deals are actually happening behind the scenes.
From there, the conversation shifts to the biggest structural changes Epic has introduced: in-island item sales (and why they might be the single biggest unlock for creators to date), the rollout of UA Rewards and Paid Campaigns, and the latest adjustments to Discovery. We dig into how these tools reshape studio strategy, how developers are adapting their designs, and what all of this means for long-term sustainability on the platform.
We’d like to thank Overwolf for making this episode possible! Whether you're a gamer, creator, or game studio, Overwolf is the ultimate destination for integrating UGC in games! You can check out all Overwolf has to offer at https://www.overwolf.com/.
We’d also like to thank modl.ai for making this episode possible! Using a combination of computer vision, reasoning models, and feedback loops, modl:QA+ autonomously explores builds, detects bugs, and generates actionable reports that sync directly with your existing workflows. To learn more, simply visit https://www.modl.ai/.
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 diving into the world of Fortnite Creative and the ecosystem to break down a wave of major updates Epic has rolled out over the past few weeks in some of the biggest moments from the last few months, we're gonna hit on the biggest topic, shaping the ecosystem right now, including the rise of Steal the Brain Rot, what it signals for developers in the recent M&A activity that is occurring on the platform.
From there, we'll dig into why Epic's decision to allow in-game item sales is such a huge unlock, as well as the recent introduction of UA Rewards, paid campaigns, and changes to discovery and what it means for the creators on the platform. Returning to the podcast to discuss all of these changes is Chad Mustard, the CEO of JOGO Studios, uh, top 10 developer in terms of plays, as well as a new guest, Jon Jungemann, AKA SleightedSloth, a leader in the tycoon genre on the platform. Welcome to the podcast, guys.
Chad: Thanks for having us.
Sloth: Thanks for having me.
David: So just to kick us off, Chad, you've been on the podcast before, but for folks who missed, could you give a quick introduction before we let Jon introduce himself for the first time?
Chad: Sure. The name's Chad Mustard. I'm the COO, not the CEO of JOGO Games.
It's okay. Dave, I, I've been doing Fortnite. I'm a Fortnite content creator since Fortnite came out, it was done a lot of YouTube videos. When Fortnite Creative came out, I switched my content to Fortnite Creative and spent a long time building an audience there. And then when UEFN came out, I partnered with Typical Gamer, who's another YouTuber, and we started JOGO and started making maps together.
And it's been a lot of fun, a lot of successes, a lot of failures as well. And it's been a really good learning experience and excited about the future of UEFN and other UGC platforms.
David: Awesome. And Jon?
Sloth: Yeah. My name's Jon. I'm also known as Sloth in the space. I actually started with Fortnite. I started playing Fortnite back when Save the World came out, is what I originally got it for, and was excited when Creative came out, but I never hopped on. And I'd been a developer for 10 plus years on mobile apps. And as soon as UEFN was announced, I was so excited. I had had to hop in. I had to get into this. I was like, I'm not gonna miss this chance to make video games. And it's led to this being my full-time job now for over the last year and a half.
And I love it. I've met a lot of people. I've gotten to go down real fast. It's, it's a lot of fun. It's, it's really cool how small the space is, but everybody's like, willing to help.
David: That's amazing. We, I know, we know we had Alberto on the, on the podcast. He similarly was working at Microsoft and then, you know, UEFN came out and he made a mini game box, PVP, which blew up.
And then he also, you know, had to quit his job. So, it's just cool to see like a lot of people sort of being able to pursue their dreams through, you know, UGC gaming. So, so we're gonna sort of just jump right into the meat of the conversation. I think, the thing, the place where I wanted to kick things off was, you know, for a long time there wasn't a ton of breakout hits on the, on the creative side.
You know, you had your, you know, traditional games like the Pit that had been there since the very beginning of Fortnite Creative, but very few had really broken through. And then in the last month or so, I think maybe ma last six weeks, we saw steal the brain route, come over and, and basically take out, take over the entire creative platform which is interesting because Steal a Brain Rot was a breakout hit on Roblox, and then somebody else came over and, and made it on Fortnite. And so, I just wanted to kind of discuss the implications of this, both from like, you know, from an inspiration perspective, but also from a, like, what does it mean for the Fortnite creator ecosystem now that games can, you know, be bigger than there's a game that can be bigger than Battle Royale at, at, at some points of the, of the week?
Chad: I, I can start us off here, Jon. There's, it's if one, it's really cool to see that it's possible to rival Epic Games, right? So there, there is a potential to, it just proves that there is that ability for players to stay on the platform and play something other than Battle Royale. That is a great inspiration, I think, for everyone.
Now the Steal a Brain Rot game mode itself is very divisive in the community, both from on the developer side to even the player side. A lot of players will look at Epic promoting Steal a Brain Rot and they're like, why are you promoting this Brain Rot, AI, whatever, you know? And a lot of players get upset about that.
And at least on, you know, public posts on X or, or anywhere else, you'll see a lot of negativity around it. But the players that are playing it are continuing to play it. So that is one thing that shows me that there is a demand for something other than a combat map or a combat game in the ecosystem.
So that's very encouraging. And we kind of saw this trend happening before even steal a brain rott. You'll, you'd see, I think, one we're seeing that Roblox has a lot of influence. There's, when something is blowing up on Roblox, people want to play it on other platforms as well. You've seen, or you've even seen it on Roblox, where you see something blowing up on Roblox and people make a copy of it, like Peak or something on Roblox and it starts to do well.
People wanna play things on other platforms and it, it, Fortnite is no exception. So we saw it, there was some Grow a Garden knockoffs that did fairly well, not as well as Steal a Brain Rot, but, or even like, Nine Nights in the Forest or there's a couple of other popular Roblox games that have, have also done well in Fortnite.
I think Steal a Brain Rots is a little different where they have done a really, really good job updating the game and keeping it fresh and, and interesting. And the gameplay loop is a little bit more addicting than say, some of those other games I mentioned. But Epic has also gone all in on promoting them with like really hero banners and stuff.
So, it is exciting to see that Epic is changing their systems to promote maps that are doing well. And, you know, I hope to see more game modes break out like that. I don't know what those are gonna be, but it has affected, it has affected other maps like the combat maps that we're doing well have actually seen, taken a hit in player base 'cause they're playing Brain Rot, Steal a Brain Rot, as opposed to playing those.
So, you know, you'll, if you're talk, it depends on who you talk to. It's a good thing or a bad thing, depending on like, how it's affecting their revenue. Right. It is negatively affecting other people's revenue because so many players are playing steel brain rot, which is great for Faron, who made it like they're, they're doing awesome and do big, who has partnered with them as well, which is a huge Roblox company.
So, there's positives and negatives to everything, but I think it's probably more positive than negative in terms of seeing where the ecosystem can go and where we don't have to rely on battle royale forever.
David: Yeah. One, I mean, I think one of the things that makes Steal a Brain Rot super compelling as a, as a port over to Fortnite is, Fortnite is all, is, you know, at its core as a PVP game.
And that's what has made Steal a Brain Rot so sticky on Roblox is, is the PVP aspect. Because every game feels different. Right? And I think part of the reason why Grow a Garden lost steam on Roblox and maybe never had a big success on Fortnite is 'cause it's just a, you know, a PVE sort of cozy game. And, and so like that just doesn't translate quite as well as, as what makes Fortnite so good, which is like that, that PVP component.
So, I actually haven't played the game, but I can imagine like, it probably makes sense in the, in the Fortnite Universe.
Chad: Oh yeah. I mean, the gameplay loop for Steal a Brain Rot is fantastic. Like, it is, it's a really quick and easy thing to understand, and it's not like a giant world that you have to go and explore.
It's like there's, there's very few things that very simple to understand and, and then it's a collecting thing, right? It's like Pokemon, like you gotta catch 'em all type thing. And so, it makes it really easy to update you release, you know, they, they, they put out two or three new brain rots every week.
And so, there's new things to come back and try and get every week with live events and promotion and all this stuff behind it. And how, like, the kids wanna see what are the new brain rots. So, they look up the YouTube videos and the YouTubers that are promoting it, and it becomes this like self-sustaining loop, because they have some really strong, uh, retention mechanics in it.
Versus, I mean, even Grow a Garden had similar things where it's like, oh, there's new seeds and new things coming out, but the PVP element where you can like steal other people's brain rots and, you know, there's always this like, risk of losing everything is, is another part of it. So yeah, it's a fun game.
You know, there's arguments to be made about the whole AI stuff behind it and like the genesis of what Brain Rot is and whatever. There's always gonna be something where people are like, oh, I can't believe kids. No, I would never have played Brain Rot if I was a kid. Yeah, right. The same thing with like for people when Fortnite was getting big, people were like, Fortnite is the worst. I, when I was a, when I was playing games, it was cool, right? Or it's, it's always gonna be like that. The next generation will never understand the younger generation. But I am, I think it's been, it has been fun to watch.
David: Yeah. I mean, to me, Brain Rot is a great case study in what happens to IP when it's not gate kept.
You know, like if you just let, give people the, the ability to play around with an IP, like they'll figure out the way to make it the most fun. And so like, that's what made, that's why Brain Rot has been so successful, is it's like a recognizable IP that kids will engage with and there's no restrictions on the use.
And so, everybody's making brain rot games 'cause it's like, well I just need something that, like, that will get people in the door and then you just deliver fun gameplay. And that's what, you know, keeps them, keeps them around.
Chad: Yes. I, I would hope, I, I hope sometimes that IPs look at this, like, for me, I look at like the anime world where like every kid would love to play with all of those IPs.
And if there was a legal way to play with those IPs without having to share so much of your revenue, like I think it would, it, it would really benefit those IPs 'cause it would just blow them up. More people. Now people are like, what is brain rot? They look up what brain rot is and they're like, oh, okay, this is dumb.
Or this is actually kind of interesting and fun. I think it's fun. I, I, I think it's fun to just be like, wow, you're combining all of these real world things together to make something crazy. And, like to me that's, I mean, it's just a, it is the new Pokemon version and, and anyone can make their own brain rots now.
You just make it up and there it is, and it's cool and fun. So, I like, I like it personally. Hopefully nobody like listen to this and like this Mustard guy's the worst for liking anything AI, or that came from AI. But like, I, I think it's just fun. Like my, I could see my kids, my kids have not been exposed to brain rot yet, but I know they would love it.
Could they be like, well, combine a wombat? My, my, my wombats, my daughter's favorite animal should be, what if I combined a wombat with a chair and like, there's a brain rot, right? Like, she would love to see that. So like, as a kid, me as a kid when I was young, I would've been like, pyp up all sorts of things, making things up.
And so, I get it. I get why it's blown up.
David: Cool. I wanna sort of transition to the next topic of sort of the going on of, of the Fortnite Creative ecosystem around some recent M&A activity, right? The Pit was acquired. This is obviously a phenomenon that's really, present on Roblox. We see through our data just constantly games are changing hands between creators, smaller creators selling to slightly larger creators, selling to slightly larger creators, selling to like large studios. I mean, this is just sort of like, you know, the, the common path of, of a piece of content on Roblox at this point. And we saw some early inklings of that with, with, Beyond Gagen buying the Pit.
So just wanted to hear if this is happening, if you guys are seeing sort of, sort of this activity on a broader scale, or if these are sort of one-offs with the largest games being acquired by like non-native studios.
Sloth: Kinda what I've seen, I feel like it's, it's kind of slowed down since the, the, the Pit acquisition.
I think, um, like robots is really attractive for other investors right now. It seems like that's the bigger focus. I, I have not. I guess seen a lot of different acquisitions since that one.
Chad: I've only seen a couple. I like, I know, uh, I don't know if I want to name names here, but I've seen a couple of larger, people buy some like brain rock games and, and, and try to grow those.
So that has happened a little bit. It is nowhere near as sophisticated a system as Roblox is. I mean, Roblox like that is kind of like the market for games right now versus in UEFN. It is still build your own games, see if you can grow it. The, I mean, JOGO, we bought a couple of maps, a couple of more pro maps, and I, I still think it's a viable thing in UEFN 'cause the hardest, the hardest part is building that first loyal base of a few hundred concurrent players to, to, you know, anywhere from like 200 to a thousand like that is really hard to build that base and then you can grow, if you can grow it from there and maintain it, like that's where an investment becomes interesting, versus you can invest a lot of money making a game and then you might get a few hundred players and then it just dies, right?
Because you, you couldn't maintain that player base. So, there is still viability there, I think. And, but I still think there is a lot of hesitancy to buy and sell or buy and sell games 'cause if you sell it and it blows up, you're like, shoot, that could have been me versus if you, versus getting the payout right away kind of thing. So, it is still happening, but it is not very common.
David: Yeah, and I mean, last time I checked on, on the Fortnite ecosystem, the sort of the shape of these engagement graphs was like very high peak. And then basically. Way, way back down to the bottom. Yep. Like even approaching zero. And so like from a buying perspective, it's like there's not really any opportunity to like invest and make a return over a longer period of time.
Has it changed at all or do are like engagement graphs still looking like, you know, you get your one shot in the sun and then after a week it's basically over.
Sloth: If you're not the top creator, it's hard. Yeah, I would say that's pretty accurate. Every one of my maps that's done well, your biggest hit is your initial release.
And then if you get Epic picks, that's usually the second biggest like peak in has been my experience. Unless you have, you know, something like a content creator or social media influencer to be able to promote it, that first Discover hits usually the best one.
Chad: Yeah, I, I would agree. It's still, I, I would still say 99% of maps are gonna follow that trend.
That doesn't mean you, there aren't maps that are breaking that trend. Some of the examples are the, the brain rot maps, like Steal a Brain Rot or there's a, there's a few others that have popped up that have been able to maintain a fairly good player base for, you know, longer than a month. But to stick around and like have like a solid player base that's always there, that is extremely rare.
You know, that's, that's, that's only happening one out of, I don't know, probably 10,000 maps like that that's happening.
David: Got it. And do you guys have any perspective on like what the key differences between Roblox and Fortnite that allows for these Roblox games to basically sustain audiences for significantly longer than Fortnite
Sloth: Mobile? I, yeah, I think mobile's the big part. You know, on Roblox you can be on a game on your phone in what, 10 seconds? You know, you're a couple minutes on Fortnite. And I think as far as I last checked, it's like 80, 90% of the user base on Roblox is mobile. Right. But so, I, I think that's the biggest challenge right now.
David: I mean, this is honestly why I'm so bullish on Roblox long term, is because the, the platform user experience is so much more superior to any other platform like console, PC, you know, what have you. Like, being able to just get into a game for the first time and be in it in five minutes is just such a good player experience.
And the next best thing is like 30 seconds on mobile. Like if you have a good internet connection and then like a minute to an hour on PC and console, depending on how big the game is. So like, even though the quality of the games isn't as great, like just the ability to pop into a new game every, every minute until you find something you really like is just so, so good from a player perspective.
Chad: A hundred percent. And I, I think that is it. Beause you can, I mean, at any point in the middle of your class, you could just be like, teacher's not looking. I can go and collect my, my, you know, get a couple of brain rots off of the, off of the, the line or whatever. I mean, like that, that is it. And, and so it, it, there's retention there.
There's all sorts of things your mom isn't watching. Like you don't have to go boot up your Xbox or your PC to play it. And then when there's an update, you don't have to download a 90 gigabyte download. Like there's, there, there is, Fortnite is at a huge disadvantage there in terms of player base growth.
Like, I mean, Fortnite is saturated, has saturated the console market. Like there's, there's the only way for them to grow on console is to sell more consoles. And so there's, if Fortnite or Epic can ever figure out how to really make the mobile experience more accessible then, then I think there's gonna be some competition for Roblox.
But until that's figured out, it's Roblox is gonna dominate.
David: What, so what happened with the mobile launch? Like I, there was all, you know, a big, big announcement around them being able to offer it in at least the EU. Did nothing come of that? Like was there, is there not a lot of players using it?
Sloth: I think the biggest challenge right now is still like, I think Fortnite is amazing. I'm bullish on Fortnite, so I'll, I'll say that like, I'm huge on it. I think it's, it's got great potential, but I think Fortnite is in a spot where it has to differentiate itself from Roblox because like every kid talks with each other about Roblox and they can go download it and be on it so quickly.
You can get like in the US on iPhone, you can have Fortnite now, but it's like a 30 gigabyte download, you know? And a lot of kids, they're not gonna do that. They're just gonna go play Roblox. And I think, and this is kind of an addition to the brain rots stuff growing in Fortnite. It is exciting, but it's also a challenge 'cause I think that if it doesn't differentiate itself from Roblox.
So why are kids, they're just gonna go play Roblox? Because what's, you know, what's the point I can get in that quicker. I kind of look at Fortnite as like the AAA UGC. And so, I think long term it would be really cool to see that differentiation. And I think that's where there's a higher potential because I think that the CCU is the thing that, the hot flashy thing to everybody, but the real thing is spend, and spend in Fortnite is way higher per customer than.
So, yeah, I think we can just, if there's more things that we can do to differentiate ourselves and make better games that make people wanna download Fortnite, I think that that's, that that's gonna be the big thing.
David: Yeah. So I mean, so we were, we were sort of saving this, I was saving this for the end of the conversation, but let's, let's dive into it now and then we can get to sort of the major innovations that, that Fortnite has rolled out.
So, you know, Fortnite engagement is undeniably down substantially from last year and even further down from the year before. Right. They had Fortnite OG, which really like, was a huge boost to the ecosystem, to their player base. Now we're, you know, around 1 million, slightly over 1 million CCU, whereas back then it was like 3 million plus.
And so, I'm just curious, like, you know, where are we in sort of the, the life of Fortnite. Is this a, is this a temporary lull? And you know, they're gonna come roaring back with some huge update that nobody, you know, that blows everybody away like, you know, Fortnite OG or The Big Bang Event. Or, or are we sort of in this, in sort of the, the other side of the peak and we're sort of just, you know, moving through the usual player decline that comes with most games in the world?
Chad: That's a hard question to answer. I think, you know, there, there's ebbs and flows to any game. And, and especially I, I, Fortnite is kind of a pioneer of this whole new like live ops, uh, type of thing. Like, it used to be like, well now you get Call of Duty 20,000 or whatever. And, and here's, they just release a new game every year versus this is Fortnite seven, like we're entering chapter seven in, at the end of this week.
And who knows, like, maybe, maybe that'll attract a bunch of players back and could be a really strong chapter. A lot of it depends on, on that and how people respond to it. I think Epic has done a really good job at bringing people back consistently with either collabs or events or new, you know, they, they, they take a lot of risks with their game in updating it and trying different and new things.
And you never know if something's going to just spike people coming back. But I think, I, I see the vision of what UEFN and Fortnite together can, can be, and watching something like still a brain run grow into where, you know, it's hitting hundreds of thousands of CCUs every day. It shows me that there are other games that can live in this and where it can grow.
Maybe there is some game that a, a developer makes, or even Epic makes, , that attracts a, a big audience in, and I think we were gonna talk about this later too, but like, even they announced that they're going to bring in Unity games where, you know, you could potentially play it. It becomes, it really becomes a platform then where you're clicking on a Unity game and playing that unity game like right off of Fortnite.
And so, there's, there, I don't know, I, I don't know what the future is gonna hold. I think we're definitely in a slump. But that could change. I mean, the same thing with Roblox. Roblox didn't have all the player base 10 years ago. But now they do, right? And they've, they've seen that growth, and I'm hoping, I, I think Epic will figure it out. I don't know how long is that's gonna take though.
Sloth: Yeah. What I would agree, I think that long term. I think we're in a slump right now, but long term as our ability to create UEFN and what we can do can start to rival that of, of UE of Battle Royale and reload and all those different epic created modes.
I think that will be what ultimately drives that engagement and group growth, because it's kind of like the movie Ready Player One. Like, it's like, it's gonna be huge, right? Like there's no other, like Chad said, there's no other platform where you have all these skins and everything. You've invested and all this time, like into this big game.
You don't do that in Call of Duty, right? Like I think that this has a opportunity to drive a really meaningful, rounded adult audience, even so, yeah.
Chad: Long term potential. Huge. I mean, that, that is a huge, like John was saying, is like all of those skins already exist. You know, Disney is already got all of their IPs in it, and that's gonna be even bigger in the coming year, two, and.
But Disney playing with the Paramount characters, playing with Goku, playing with whoever. You can't do that on Roblox, at least legally. No. And, and like that is such a big man. That is such a hard thing that Epic has done and tackled that no one else has really even had the, the guts to do, to, and, and, and also convinced all of those different IPs to play in the same playground.
And so, like that, that is to me is something that Will, is more sustainable or, or that gives me hope for sustainability in the future.
Sloth: Yeah. I think that's cool. You can even look at the, oh, sorry. Sorry. No, you go ahead. Go ahead. Oh, I was gonna say, you can even look at the end of this season promo.
You have Homer Simpson and Godzilla and the Zo all in one fighting. Yeah. Like, where else in the world can you see that to where you can be master chief shooting at Homer Simpson? You know, it's just the, the, the potential long-term is just so huge that I don't think that I would be arguing that Roblox won't compete with that.
Like you, where are you gonna be able to play Disney, Lego, and everything, all in one place? It's, it's sport.
David: Yeah, makes sense. And I mean, you know, steal, steal the brain rock, being successful signals that creators can, you know, drive meaningfully meaningful engagement. I think the, the other, the other question that comes up though is like, you know, there's always been sort of a restrictive tool set on, on UEFN.
It's, it's always been limited in what types of games you can make. And that's sort of where we're, we're gonna get into like the monetization, which is a huge step. But I just wanted to see like, like have the tools evolved to the extent where you're, you're feeling like you can make new games or are you still sort of like confined to the primary Fortnite framework?
Sloth: I think it's challenging. I don't, it's a hard question to answer 'cause like we don't know what drives discover and, you know, we've had, we had a map that we made called Grow Farm, where the playtime was over 60 minutes and almost 30 min, you know, 30% retention day one. And all of our stats were great, but it didn't have the click through, so it didn't take off and discover.
So, some of the tech's kind of there to get us to be able to make different games. But, you know, with that comes some risk because it's new tech and so it's also not as stable. So, I think we're getting there whether we're there yet or not. I don't, I don't know.
Chad: I would, yeah, I, I would say there's not, yes, it is way better than it was two years ago.
Like, absolutely. We're getting new stuff constantly. Just like we're about to talk about like, some of these new things, but there's also some really critical things that are missing that, that you would expect in like a normal video game, like leaderboards, like just having. World, like a worldwide leaderboard where if David scores a thousand points and he's the top in the world, but I, I can't see that unless I manually put it in.
Like there's no automated leaderboards. Like that is such a, like a core game function. Especially where PVP is involved that we don't have access to that. Right.
David: Or I feel like we were talking about this like two years ago and it was like a hundred percent leaderboards was right around the corner.
Chad: Like there's just some core things that I'm like, why, why do we not have leaderboards or cross map persistence? Like where, if there was some way to persist data between games, then I could make infinite worlds like it, I could make a huge, giant world. Uh, if I could persist that data between games and like, the fact that we don't have that yet, it makes me like, why, why does that not exist?
And, and so there's a number of things like that where if we had it, then that would like open up a ton of doors. But there's also, there's the things that they had to do before that I get like, let's have first person, let's have, I, I don't know, like monetization, which we should talk about here.
Yeah. But there's, there is. But I, I think we'll get there. We'll get there. It's just not, it is not there yet.
David: Cool. Well, let's hop into monetization. So Jon, can you help us sort of understand what just, what just happened with, with the recent update where, you know, in item sales or in in, uh, island sales, you know, was unlocked?
Sloth: Yeah, so, they don't have a date yet, but in December they are gonna allow in-game item sales. And I think that's going to be huge 'cause I think it'll, like, for my example for tycoons that's really popular in Roblox where you pay to unlock something or get double money. I think that will be huge to be able to help like the smaller tycoons to grow and to like get some.
Other revenue that's not necessarily click through rate, because I think, and we'll talk about this later, but, but I think that the in tandem item sales along with the sponsored revenue, like the sponsored discovery paths, like if you have the right CPM, like you could just keep boosting that, you know, and paying to sponsor it.
And then, you know, you're gonna get X customers in and they're gonna buy the items. They're gonna, I think that it's, it's, it's huge and it's gonna blow a lot of doors, I think, for smaller potential creators. I'll be curious to see how it works for the bigger maps 'cause like, some of the examples were like selling access to a weapon and I, I don't think we can do that.
I think they changed, so the rules say you can't make it be specifically like pay to win, but really I didn't, I didn't think it's kind of loosely based.
Chad: Yeah, I, I'm not exactly sure all the rules on it, but from what I've seen, like you can, you could gatekeep a, a weapon if you wanted behind a paywall and or even opening at this door. You could say you can't open this door. That's true. Unless you pay for, it's so.
Sloth: Even Tom Jank had the paying a hundred B bucks to jump.
Chad: Exactly. Yeah. So, I think you're gonna see a lot of tech people, a lot of gray area, and, and probably even a lot of bad area too, like coming out. So, I'm, I'm assuming there'll, there'll be, there'll be a lot of rules that come out later.
It's gonna be a little bit of Wild West for a while 'cause I, I know Tim Sweeney has always said, he's always kind of been opposed to this idea of pay to win or microtransactions within games. And I, I'm not sure what changed his mind. Maybe, maybe the current slump in Fortnite has changed his mind a little bit to be like, well, how can we monetize UEFN better?
Because Epic will make money off of that just like Roblox does. And so, I, I think it'll be interesting to see how it evolves. But I also think it's not gonna be like Roblox where, you know, everyone's just used to it in Roblox. They've had it for 14 years, versus everything's been free in Fortnite for seven.
Yeah. And you don't ever have to spend a penny on that game to change the experience. And now you go into your, the game you like and, and there's a paywall behind the new gun, or the person that pays can get a boost that makes them more powerful than you. I, I, that's gonna be, gonna be some pain around that, I think in the player base.
And people will like it. Some people will be like, sweet, I can, you know, there's gonna be the whales out there that are spending all the money and there's gonna be a lot of kids that are like, I don't wanna play this anymore. I see. Like, this guy's killing me. So, it is gonna be a very fine balance, I think, for game devs to, to figure out how to, to navigate it.
Sloth: I think that's gonna be the challenge, because if you have the top red versus blue map and you charge access to the mini gun, why are they gonna go play yours? They can just go play the other game and play it. Get it for free. Yep. And so, I think that as creators, we're gonna have to be really creative on how we monetize because of that fact.
Like I don't think that we'll be able to do the, like example in Roblox you can unlock to be able to automatically collect your money in a lot of tycoons. I don't think that's gonna work because why are you gonna do that when you can go play another tycoon that already has it set up? You know? I think we're gonna have to have more meaningful in-game purchases in order to have that be successful.
Chad: At least to start, you know, maybe in a year everyone's just gonna be like, oh, whatever. They're just so used to it. But I think that, I think it's gonna be, this first year is gonna be a lot of experimentation and, and hoping people don't get burned off of your map because you did something that they didn't like.
Or, or maybe it's worth it 'cause like you said, like, like, Jon was saying, you have, you might not have 10,000 CCUs, but you have a hundred that are paying like regularly. And then if that becomes worth it. So, so who knows? It, it, you could see a lot more games like that, that have small player bases, but that they're, they're paying out, uh, $5 a month or something and you're like, okay, sweet, I can sustain this.
So, I think it is a good thing, but it's gonna be an interesting, maybe painful process to as people adjust.
David: Yeah, I mean, I think the headline is just like, it allows for more niche content to exist, right? Yes. Because if, because like, I'll ultimately for people to do this, they need to be making some money.
There's obviously creators who will do it for free and just do it because they, you know, love to make games, but. You know, you see it on, on Roblox all the time. The games, if a game reaches a certain level, it stops getting updated because it can't generate enough money to sustain the people working on it.
So, you know, it just gets dropped and it's done. And so, you know, I think for Fortnite, especially given you know, that the number of players is lower, but the, but the, you know, willingness to spend is higher. This is definitely important for, for a diversity of content to be, to be viable. And then, you know, you can keep updating it and then who knows, maybe you, you add a feature that ends up making it go viral and then this game that would've never existed ends up being a major driver of engagement because, you know, you find the, the sweet spot and you're able to monetize it.
Chad: Yes. Hundred percent.
David: To sustain it long enough. So, so, yeah, I mean, I, I agree with everything you guys are saying. It's definitely like, at the end of the day, it should be a game design choice. It shouldn't be like a restriction. Like the creators will know what's the best choice for the audience, and, and they have the incentives to do what's, what's best.
Chad: It is a little awkward, I will say, because Epic has their own items that they're selling. So, this isn't like Roblox because Roblox doesn't have a core game that they are, or even a core, you know, system where they're selling things versus Epic is like battle royale. They have, they have, control over discovery.
They can, they can feature whatever they want, whenever they want their games, whether they're successful or not. I mean, I look at like ballistic mode, which is their first person kind of like, um, CS go kind of knockoff and it sat in a home bar for like, I don't know, 6-12 months. And it was getting, it was, it was getting way less players than maps that were getting no promotion.
And so, we're, we're really competing against Epic. But Epic has all the, they have all the keys to the kingdom kind of thing. And they even say, you can't, you can't mess with skins, you can't mess with gun skins and, and any cosmetics that mess with something they would've bought from Fortnite.
We cannot mess with that. So, we have to do stuff that are maybe surrounds that, but we can't change it or, so it makes it, it is a little bit, it's, it is more restrictive than like another platform like Roblox.
David: And that's a, do you think that's a technical constraint or that is a business decision? It's a business decision.
Chad: A hundred percent. Well, and there's like, I can't change, I mean there is things I could do, like I could put on, I could put boots on someone and. And say, yeah, it's just cosmetic, but, and Epic is saying if you change the boot to have like, affect the game, like if it's a speed boot instead of just a cosmetic boot, then you can sell it.
So, there's just a lot of these like nuanced things that are gonna be, people are probably gonna abuse, be like, oh yeah, that boot boosted your damage output put by 0.1% or something. I don't know, like, it's gonna be a little sticky or, or a little bit, I don't know, weird for a while, but, I don't know.
I don't know how long that'll last, but Epic is, it's just a little awkward between their system and our, and what our systems can or could be.
David: I wonder if the fear is like if people are selling like cosmetics in these experiences, that they'll stop purchasing items in the item store.
Chad: No, no, no. I, it's, I think the worry is that you are interfering with something they've already bought.
So it's like, oh, you're covering up Peele, the banana you bought and with something else. And then, and then they're like, oh, I don't want that or I didn't know what I was buying. And so, I think that's a little bit of the concern there.
David: Yeah. I mean.
Chad: Because, because if you're spending Roblox, or sorry if you're saying spending V bucks, I don't think Epic cares.
They're like, we're making the money, because you're spending it and whatever you're spending on, I don't think they care whether it's a skin or opening a door, but I, I also think they don't want to mess with people's or things they've already bought.
Sloth: Or like making them be able to sell something in a game that's very close to the cosmetic that they would buy in the item shop. You know, I think that that's a challenge, but I think that as Fortnite grows, like I think they will move away from being the main game and be the platform. You know, I think that's just growing pains that we're gonna be in for now.
David: Got it. Yeah, I mean, like on, on Roblox, if we're using that as sort of a, a case study, like you have your cosmetic, you, you have your Avatar cosmetics, and then you have in-game cosmetics. And like, if you decide that you wanna overwrite the entire avatar and just give someone like a completely different character that is, that is the, you know, creator's choice. And then they have to sort of deal with the consequences of people not liking it because they can't use their own custom avatar.
Like, it seems kind of weird that they would restrict this in the way that they, they're doing it.
Chad: Definitely a little weird, but, but also there's just a, you know, it's, it could mess with the base mechanics of, you know, Fortnite movement, et cetera. And maybe that'll change. I, I think it'll change in the coming years like, kinda like Jon was saying, as Battle Royale becomes less of the, the main game of Fortnite. But I think it's gonna be a, it'll be a long transition period. I will be years.
David: All right, let's move on to UA user acquisition. So they introduced a couple things. You know, UA rewards, some changes to discovery and paid campaigns. So, first off, you know, Chad, you're a, you're a content creator. Curious to understand like how you're approaching the UA rewards and the direct links that they introduced that allow you to go from a link directly into an experience rather than going through the whole process of like uploading into Fortnite and then loading into the game.
Chad: We haven't really used it. It's not super good yet. Mostly it, it just comes back to the same argument of, you know, download sizes and stuff 'cause if someone has a downloaded Fortnite and, on their phone, 'cause it's still, like most people play, most people are playing Fortnite on console. I think it's like 80% or something like that.
Jon, you can correct me if I'm wrong. I don't know exactly the, but it's like the vast majority of players are on console. So that right there completely, like there, there's no point to the link. So, whether you're clicking on it on your PC or on your phone and it's taking your two to that, it still has to be that you've downloaded it.
And if you haven't downloaded it, it's a, it's a massive download that's gonna take you an hour or more to download. And then even then it takes a while to boot up because it is so much memory and then you have to download the map if you haven't. So, it's, it's, it's not something that we're using a lot like it, there's no, there's not a huge benefit to the links yet. Uh, so, but if they're working on thin client. Which is supposed to be smaller download sizes where you can just download UEFN maps or whatever. And as we start to see that come out, we'll probably start testing it out more. But even then, we're not allowed to do, we're not allowed to do like paid advertisements outside of Fortnite.
It's that breaks terms of service. We can say, Hey, click the link in the description below or something. But even that is not super effective. Like it's easier just to say, Hey, go search for the code my game or the code in like when you boot up Fortnite, make sure you go search brain rot. And ours is the first one on there, right?
Yeah. Like that is a, that is more effective than saying click on this link, 'cause then people are like, well, where am I going? Like, I don't like, so there's there, it is still more effective to do that.
David: So, do you think they, they pushed this update just because it was easy? Like what's the—
Chad: I, I think it was probably, it is not that hard to do technically, but it still doesn't make sense.
With, with the current system, I think it is probably preparing for what's coming down the, because I think it's coming, like they're gonna figure out how to, to have smaller download sizes where mobile will become a bigger player. I don't think I, I think Epic because of the lawsuit with Apple and Google.
It hadn't been working on mobile, but that, that is resolving, it's still ongoing, but it's available in the EI, it's available in the U.S. It's, it's, it's getting, becoming more available in other territories every week kind of thing. And so, I think that's kind of jostled them into like, okay, we gotta figure this out fast.
And versus, I don't think they were working on it before 'cause they're like, we don't know. We could be in a litigation for another 10 years. What's the point of spending? All the time developing it when we can't, we can't put it on any platform. So, yeah, we'll see. I think, I think we'll see more changes in the year, in the next year, and then linking will become more effective.
David: Cool. And then the other thing that was introduced was paid campaigns, which I'm guessing is sponsored ads. Right. So basically the ability to pay for discovery to show you in a, in a sponsored tab on Fortnite. So just want to get your early, early, perspectives on what this means for you guys as creators, how you're gonna use it.
Is there anything that gets unlocked through this or is this an opportunity for Epic to just sort of like, take some money back from, from you guys?
Sloth: And John, what's your experience so far? Click through rate is a lot worse. It's, you know, in my experience like at max the best case, it seems like it's 10% of what it is normally in Discover.
Chad: Yeah.
Sloth: It seems like people can gloss over. Now that being said, I guess if you have a gain that has 10% click through and you can get a percent and have custom items down the road, I think that that'll be viable.
I think in its current state, it kind of feels like something that allows the bigger players to just be relevant because like you can see somebody that has had a big map from like the earlier, like a year or two ago, you know, or they have a couple thousand CCU if they can spend enough money to push it into home bar, for example, that will recover that.
But I think it's tougher for smaller devs to make it work right now.
Chad: Yeah. That's kind of what we're experiencing a little bit. I mean we've been watching people that are doing it. We've done in some of our own campaigns and. Right now, the CPMs are pretty high, I would say, for what you're getting.
And, and not only that, like the people, if you, if we've seen, so—
David: Sorry. When you say, when you say CPM, what, what are you referring to?
Chad: Okay, so that's, so CCP m is how much you spend for a thousand impressions. So, it's, it's the same like if you're, if you're spending money to do Google Ads or anywhere else, it's not too different.
It's very similar. And then what is the cost roughly? Well, it, it depends. Like, you can go, you can bid because it's, it's an auction bid to where if John says, Hey, I want to bid for this space, and I'm, I'm willing to pay $5 a $5 CPM, and I say, I'm willing to spend $10. Mine will outbid John's at $5 and 1 cent.
And then if John's like, well, I'm gonna adjust it to five 50, and then I, but mine will outbid his at 5 56 and, and then so I'll get the impression over him, but I, I also have a daily spend limit. So, if I hit my daily spend limit, if I put that a hundred dollars, then John's could take over and say, okay, now John's next at $5.
And he'll get that impression over mine because I've already reached my daily limits. And so right now the limits are, the top is $20 for CPM, which is absurd. I mean, to make back $20 on an impression or a click. I mean, just imagine like you have to pay $20 for a game. Like someone has to spend $20 or more on your game for that to make sense.
So if someone's paying that, it's an absurd price. But you can spend up to that much. Probably a better range is in anywhere from 50 cents to $2. Like if you're spending over $2 on a CPM, you're probably not gonna, like, you're probably wasting your money. But a lot of these guys, I think are spending it that over that right now.
And the problem is like if you, right now, I think if you put your daily budget too low, you're just gonna get the spike. You'll get like one spike you'll spend, it'll spend all your daily budget within like five, 10 minutes, or, or like a, like if you put your daily budget at a hundred dollars, you'll probably get 20 minutes of impressions and that's not gonna do anything for your game.
Versus, I've seen some maps that are, you know, in the sponsor row for 24 hours. I bet they're spending tens of thousands of dollars for that might be worth.
David: How much are they making back, do you think?
Chad: I don't know. Like that, that's the problem is like you don't know like they're getting an into, it will get you into other categories that will sustain a player base.
Right? So, if it works for a day and then you stay in top rated or you stay in some other discovery rows or it gets you into home bar, like John was saying, then it's probably worth it 'cause then it's like you can see a longer tail of players versus if you're just gonna get a spike for an hour that's not enough or, or 10 minutes or whatever it is, it's, that's not enough to sustain it.
And for bigger maps like that, already have player bases. I haven't seen it be effective at all. Like, 'cause they're already getting millions of, of impressions a day and you paid for 500,000 like. You might see a slight bump, but it's, even then it's like, is that really worth it? Mm-hmm. I think what we're seeing is bigger creators that have disposable income are saying, well now I can go boost my small, my map that doesn't have any plays on it now and see if I can get that into discovery.
Mm-hmm. And so, it's tough for small creators 'cause they don't have $10,000 to go spend on sponsor rows, but some of these guys that are making a million or plus a month, they can say, they say, I, I don't care about $10,000. I'll just see what, see what I can, can do here. And so, it, it is tough. But it's also only been out for a week, not even a week.
And we'll see how it levels out. And like John was saying, once monetization comes out, you might even be able to justify like, oh, if I could spend a dollar but I make a buck 50, then you can just ramp it up as you as you need. Right. And, and start to build a solid player base. So, we'll see. I think right now it's still just like people are shooting.
Every which way, trying to figure out like what's gonna work, including us, like including my company. We're like, I don't know. We, we, we tried one thing is like, that was a, that was a giant waste of money and we're trying something different. We'll see if that's a big waste of money or not. I don't, we'll, we'll, we'll try and figure it out, but I think it's, right now it's better for smaller maps and bigger maps.
But I also think there's not, it's it's very expensive currently because, and I also, and I also think there's people that are doing this that don't understand what a CCP M even is. Yeah. And they're like, oh, I, I'll put my Maxs at $10.
Sloth: It's wild.
Chad: And it's just like, you don't know what you're like and they're spending it. Right. They're, they're like, it drives up the, the, the, the auction to where it doesn't even make sense to, to, to, to bid because someone's out bidding you and then driving it up. So, I think, I think it'll level out our, as people start to realize I'm wasting a ton of money, and it'll start to level out probably more than that one to $2 range is, is what I'm guessing is gonna, where what, where it'll end up.
Sloth: And they show us an average too. So, like that first day it was 67 cents per the CPM was, that was the average bid. So, like you could say, I wanna spend 11 cents per, you know, thousand pressures. Then it gets in.
Chad: Was that that first day ours was two, right? Yeah. So, it was like somebody, at least in my category or whatever, it was like people were bidding costs.
Sloth: Somebody has to be paying that higher amount because I'd imagine they get the front line in the sponsored impressions row. There's some that have been in there for a few days, so there's no way they're spending 50 cents a thousand.
Chad: No, no. They're, they're, they're well over two would be my guess.
David: So, it sounds like the takeaway is like, don't engage right now.
Like wait till the things settle down, people waste their money and, and move away from it. And then you can sort of start to bid at a reasonable price.
Chad: I would say wait until you can measure it yourself in terms of like with monetization, like you're like, I can, I can earn $3 per user, then it makes sense to spend $2 to acquire them.
Right now, we don't even know, like the problem is you don't know. You don't know what per user, how much you're making. It is all engagement based and the engagement, it was based on how much Epic made that month. So, we don't know, like did Epic have a good month in November? Did they have a good month in December?
Probably those are their better months, so it might be worth spending more in December and November. But in the middle of July, I would say, heck no. 'cause that's like always their, their worst month. And your, your, your output is gonna be way less than, so it's, it is really, it's really hard to base it off of engagement payouts. But if you can come down to where I, I am earning X amount per user, then it makes more sense.
David: All right. So, we're kind of coming to the, the end of the conversation. So, the final question for you guys would be, what's one change that Epic could make tomorrow that would most help your work?
Sloth: I think for me, I don't know, I guess probably more better ability to create custom items and weapons, I think would be number one for me. I think until then, I mean, we can kind of do it now, but it's really hacky to try to make a custom item or a custom weapon. And I think that will be the thing that will be huge. And I'll just add a slight caveat of also the ability to manage our player's data.
If I have a player that loses their data and it's wiped, I can do nothing to it right now. And that kind of scares me with in-app purchases with in-game purchases coming that, you know, if that something happens to their account, they can lose all their progress. That's, I think, because I really wanna get 'em the scenario that they paid real money for and they paid real money for stuff and I don't want them to lose that.
Like, so I think the biggest thing is that stability and data and custom stuff would be huge.
Chad: Yeah. I, I mean those are both absolutely. And this is the problem is we, you, you, if you asked a room of 10 developers, they probably all have a different answer and they'd all, they'd all be right. And so that is a big problem right there.
I would say for me, and what JOGO's doing, we, we have this desire to build bigger games and it's really hard right now to build anything more than like a mini game. And, uh, like there's so many restrictions on memory and how big your world can be, That's why I kind of mentioned before cross map persistence, 'cause then we could do stuff where like the interior of the castle is one map and then when you go outside, it's a different map, but it's still the same game. And then you go into the dungeon and that's a different map and, but it's still the same ma it's still the same game. But, so I, I don't know the solution to it, but I would love more of like either more memory or more opt, like a much better optimized experience where we can fit more into a, a single game.
Because we want to build bigger and cooler experiences. That AAA experience that John's talking about that you can't get in Roblox or, or people don't want to play in Roblox. I don't know. I actually don't know how big you can make stuff in Roblox pretty big. I think I, I've been playing, Blox Fruit.
It's pretty big game, but it's, it is, I don't know. It's, we're so limited right now to what we can do. So, I would, that would probably my number one. But like I said before, I think you'd, if you asked any other developer, they'd probably say something different. They'd say leaderboards or they'd say, I don't know.
There's, there's a ton of things that we're lacking right now that we need before we can really take off.
David: Interesting. Some, some of those, some of the things you guys have mentioned as, as restraints, I wonder like how much of it is a, like a cost issue for Epic to like deliver those things, like memory, for example, like, um, you know, persistence, like having data, you know, stored reliably.
These are all things that cost money and we, you know, we saw with Roblox is latest earnings, right? They grew their audience, but you know, their, their profitability,, actually shrank. And so, it's like, oh, well that's, that's not a good signal in terms of like this, the, the, the variable cost side. If you're adding more players, but it's costing you more money than you're making.
Chad: So, I'm, there's, I'm, I'm sure that's part of it 'cause everyone says, oh yeah, I want first person. But then they, they work, they spend all this time making first person available and then nobody plays it. You're like, shoot, that was a waste of time. Right? And like, what is a bet that's going to pay off Is, is definitely a problem 'cause we, we could go give Epic a giant list and then they could go hire a ton of developers to come and build it, and then no one plays it. What was the point? So that's definitely a concern. And I also think one of Fortnite problems is it's on so many devices. It's on like really the, right now, the pro, the biggest problem is the Nintendo Switch.
That's why we have to have smaller maps or like maps with a hundred per a hundred thousand memory or something. Or under that is because the Nintendo Switch, they have to continue to support. And same thing with bringing mobile in, that's gonna create all sorts of devices that you have to continue to support.
So, there's there, there are issues with that, but I think, not that they're not solvable, but yeah, I don't, I'm sure Epic is weighing their profitability and like, what's worth it. And they're like, I don't think U FNS made them any money yet. A hundred percent. It hasn't, like, it's just, it's a big bet into the future.
And how long are they willing to make that bet is a good question.
David: Yeah, I mean, they've, it's been over a billion dollars that they've put into just creator payouts, not even counting the expense of like, running all those servers and most, and the labor to build all of the infrastructure and pr, you know, create those updates.
Sloth: So yeah, I think the biggest challenge is that it's just a dev myself formally. I think their problem is everything is so tightly connected to VR. Yeah. I mean, we see it. We're a new CI mean you guys do it all the time and Joe go, the new B season comes out and it wrecks something big. And so you have to rush to fix it.
So, I think. Once we have that finally decoupled where they are doing VR and UVFN and they're doing these new Disney experiences and Lego experiences, it's all coming in UEFN. Like, and it's not in some special like unreal engine version. I think that's when we'll see more success, but it just has to be a nightmare to try to disconnect all of that from, from Fortnite 'cause that's what it's all built off of, so.
David: Yeah. Yep. I feel like they said that they were gonna make the next Fortnite season in UEFN like a year ago. And then as it sounds like that hasn't materialized.
Chad: Well, they, they said that, I think, I feel like it was Unreal Fest 2024 that they, their goal was to build back
Sloth: In New Orleans.
Chad: Yeah, yeah. And it was, and I was like, really? But they, but it was like, they said their goal was by the end of this year, but earlier this year, they said that's not. They're not ready for that yet. And so, they're still, I think it's still a goal, but, we'll, I don't know if that'll ever, I mean, I hope it's, if it's a possibility, but not this season. Not, or not this chapter.
David: Cool guys. So, just in closing, like what's the best way for folks to follow your work and, and keep up to date on what you guys are doing in the space?
Sloth: Yeah, for me, I mean, you can look Sloth Games up on fortnite.gg, or SleithedSloth on Twitter. It's my same handle on all of my socials, so.
Chad: For me, it's just search Mustard Plays. You can find my YouTube channel or Twitter or where, wherever. Or you can look up JOGO Games, I think it's jogogames.com if you wanna see what the company's doing there. Yeah, those are my main things.
David: Awesome. Well, thanks for coming on the podcast, guys. This has been an illuminating conversation and, you know, hopefully next time we'll have some exciting updates on how all of this has progressed and in, in how bullish we are on, on the Fortnite ecosystem long term.
Chad: Thank you for having us.
Sloth: Thanks for having us.
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