Fortnite Creator Economics with MustardPlays and Birdo

[Music] welcome to the novic gaming podcast where it is our mission to explore the business and future of video games we bring together the industry's brightest Builders investors and thinkers to keep a pulse on current events dissect emerging Trends and games share Lessons Learned and have a great time this podcast is also part of novic growing ecosystem which ranges from free and premium research to Consulting and adice advisory services for more information visit [Music] www.nic.edu are nikama the open- source backend game server hero the game development framework for all your live service game features including the complexity of managing offline mode Satori the

worldclass live Ops product for maximizing monetization and retention and lastly the heroic Cloud to provide massive scalability after nearly 10 years of operation thousands of Studios trust heroic labs to help them focus on their games and not worry about game Tech or scaling for success to learn more and reach out make sure to visit heroic labs.com or check out the link in the show notes now let's jump into the episode welcome to the novic 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 ufn in Creator economy 2.0 in March of 2023 they're showing no signs of slowing down their payouts as they increase 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 successful modes like reload the questions we're exploring today 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 AKA mustard plays founder and COO of joogo studios and Michael ha AKA Berto 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 Berto he's been on the podcast before around six months ago and uh we're excited to have him back but just quick intro on Berto his maps have been played for 4.7 billion minutes which is about 1% of all time spent in fortnite Creative since uh we've been in tracking in April of 2023 Berto is the 15th most played ufn creator of all time and a longtime in fortnite influencer Chad mustard since this is your first time or I should say mustard place since this is

your first time on the podcast I was wondering if you could take us through uh your fortnite journey and introduce yourself sure um my fortnite Journey Begins when uh save the world came out I started playing back then mostly because um I do have a family relation that 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 it would be fun to stream my the game that my brothers were working on and uh so I got into to save the world and then Battle Royale came out was a huge success and um we we I I just continued to grow with that audience 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 ufn today but creative mode was the first iteration of 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 uh I figured I could maybe grow an audience there and it was a good decision and I um really started to grow just learning how to build I I had never built anything in the past and I um started to learn how to be more artistic Etc and kind of became a a leader in the space of fortnite creative so then ufn came out and I was kind of at the top of the game at least it came to content creation I reached out to Typical Gamer to to stream the launch of ufn 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'll be fun for the release and he said yeah let's do it and we we streamed together and it was like in 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 a ufn studio and at that time before ufn 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 ufn were 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 um you know 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 at but throughout that time we started creating Maps um we just we just 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 tried this and and that but he did

100% of it and it was called fortnut it was really successful I think it has over 10 million plays just on that it was a gun game was really fun but uh don't go look at the project now it's just a complete disaster mess but uh it is like uh 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 um you know start we just kept rolling and making maps and um 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 um and I think now we have I don't even know what the updated numbers are over 350 million plays across maps and um you know we're consistently top I don't know it was definitely I could say top 10 Creator in the space um you know sometimes I looked

up your stat before I looked up uh I looked up typical Gamers like name under it and I think he was number 12 uh overall in terms of okay okay in terms of total times played so so that's just like looking back you know 18 months so if he came online like you know six months into uh ufn then you know he probably would be top 10 for the time period that he was actually building Maps yeah well I'm not sure I don't 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 uh there it's a very interesting space when it comes to um tracking numbers and what's important at the time and and I'm sure we'll get into it but yeah that's kind of my fortnite journey top 12 and top 15 is insanely successful I mean there's 30,000 uh creators on the platform so you know kudos to you guys for for being

uh such huge contributors to to the fortnite ecosystem so I want to sort of ask a question you guys are both fortnite influencers originally right you both uh got into this through making content and then became uh game developers I'm curious do you is this just by Co 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 to to your work uh I could go first I 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 one's the thumbnail so like just like YouTube but like the hook of a video is the most important your first five seconds in a 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 I would say I mean I definitely agreed with Berto on that uh it's the comparison between like YouTube and ugc in general is it's a really good analogy and 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's done a great job with his map in finding what the player wants with the with the with the mini games and that's something that we've really focused on is trying to find what the player wants and sometimes

uh 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 I think both in having like typical gamer and myself we've been in this space for 7 eight years um it's helped us just to understand the player base and I've seen other content creators try to make maps and 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 um I think that's something that both Berto and Joo have you know we figured out what the player wants and you can see the results I also think from an analytical standpoint is like improving um so I know joo's team does they had a whole talk about like looking at like the analytics of like you know um just everything to like looking at for9 GG every day looking at patterns what's trending like that's super important for videos too so same thing like playing the discovered game and Tik Tok and

fornite discover is super important yeah makes sense in terms of like uh Revenue generation do you think that the 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 uh for me it's definitely the second so content creation has always been a side job so before this I was an engineer at micros off so I always want it to be my side job um because it 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 like to promote my map now yeah I it's it's a little different for us um because there's I'm a content

creator so is 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 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 to build and all of that um versus Andre he is continuing to create a ton of content uh 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 joogo and a lot of work on his content as well and that is on purpose because he is such an amazing marketing arm for Joo in our projects and so it is uh luckily we've you know him as a influencer has has really

helped and I've been able to take a step back and focus pretty much you know 95% of my time on the on joogo um so but we we are committed to Growing this to what we want to and uh but yeah so I would say now I'm definitely a developer first yeah it sounds like it so so I'm curious um so mustard on your side like when when you were working with typical gamer you know I think we spoke 18 months ago about uh you know when you guys were first talking about forming this this studio 18 months later you launched your first publicly available map or at least publicly branded map as joogo uh 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 Joo now 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 um it's it's great book you should read

it for anyone who's in the business world it's it's great but um 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 um of what we wanted want Joo 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 were talking a of different people at the time and and even figuring out if we could work together long term um between me and and typical gamer and um Mark our CTO and you know who would we hire and bring on and like what could we really like we we started building our team before we were officially out um and you know 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 luck we had some huge

successes I mean we have a red vers blue map that 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 um but really getting just every getting all that situated properly to have the right foundations set before we're like publicly we're we're this company and we're we want to do these big things um we'd rather have it in that Foundation set first before saying we're going to be this big company versus we could come out and say hey we're already well on on our way because we we'd seen other people say we're going to do these big things and and then nothing happened and uh we didn't we didn't really want to be that and so we um 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 t under typical Gamers brand and luckily those really have done well and now we can start producing as Joo and building that up

but yeah just we just want to make sure we had everything in place Berto 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 I got to quit my my Microsoft day job um but what was it like sort of putting a a company together yeah so for me and my partner dagw so he's a Creator um just like us he has like 2.5 million plus followers and um yeah it just all came super fast we we're pretty financially literate so it's like all right we need to make an es Corp so we made our es Corp together we got a lawyer to have our contracts of ta taxes but definitely we we aren't in the same boat as like Joo because I remember when uh talking to Andre they're talking about they're using tools that I literally used on Microsoft Confluence jir I was like wow they're taking this seriously I don't think any other Studio's taking it this seriously those are like legit like that that's what I was using I was like oh wow I I know ufn Studios is doing that so we

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 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 F buster like that's a yeah that's how ours is so if our map goes down it's like all right well wait that I mean everyone everyone's kind of little in it so that's how our company is kind of formed and I think which is 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 we could just take this revenue and be be cool and like it' be a lot a lot less stress and we could 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 um but it's a risk it's definitely a risk and I feel it some days when I'm going to to bed um 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 like 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 invest it 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 you know which ones are appealing and

what have you tried and um from our perspective because we're not starting a whole company I think dag and I have gotten so much money like I think they call it the windfall money that we're we're also financially literate like we're set 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 100% into promoting marketing um the next deals so like that's how we're thinking about now now it's like all right let's just put all like we're GNA fail and crash or it's going to go well at this Mo at this point in time like we've saved enough sheltered enough for taxes have enough for our like you know for we're good that's how we think about it I mean makes sense but can can you elaborate what do you sort of Breeze through it like what are you putting the money towards that oh uh like putting your sort of your nest egg aside like what are you reinvesting into oh yeah so for us we are work 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 uh we put a lot of it into marketing and we Market it ourselves too so that's usually where our money goes for this map and then there are some other cool stuff though in the future I can't really talk about that we're also putting money in yeah 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 Roblox 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 um that most Maps can't at the moment um 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 the game itself so that's that's what we're investing in keeping this map as strong as possible yeah they're one of the few Maps I've seen that have actually done Integrations well and I mean there's

I've seen a few other try it but not not great and so Kos to you Berto for figuring that out it's it's really cool to see yeah uh it's funny because typical gamer and I like before Jugos I knew about joogo we were we did this NFL thing together and I told him like I think this is the future of brand de I was like uh I I really think like integrating into a map even like just putting an ad like is like this going to be it and I think our map is like positioned and now like it's coming full Circle so in in November you'll see a new one with mustard and you'll see another one in December you'll see another one in January and they're all like pretty cool Brands yeah that's cool yeah 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 that's that's a whole other topic yeah um we're gonna 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 uh Capital allocation for your company Joo 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 um so I mean we have modelers we have a UI guy we have um we have six verse developers people that they didn't know verse before coming in uh but they are just really high level Engineers that could come in and verse is pretty easy to to learn so I mean gosh our our lead on the pit our pit of Legends map he that was his first day where was like start building and he's like okay 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 i' never seen before so there's um for us was finding the high highle talent that could come in and be able to do anything CU for us the

reason we're investing so much in this space is not just because of the opportunity currently like it's a great opportunity right now as um you know when you're in the top 20 you're making enough money to like BR said like you're set for life um 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 um Tim Sweeney talk about it like his his vision is to bring verse and ufn and coupling it with Unreal Engine to where we could easily go and be like oh let's take berto's map and release it on Steam just copy and paste 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 the through using verse and then we can communicate with

fortnite we can communicate with what other games are out there are being made you can have cross uh you get have an an economy that talks to each other and like it to me that's a really exciting future of the quote unquote metaverse and that's what we're trying to build is a studio that can grow with ufn 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 um and then also we're starting to build out this new IP 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 uh planning on we still have lots of other areas we could invest in we're looking at like roadblox we're looking at ROBLOX that's going to just like what I was saying before you have to understand the player base and fortnite uh we have to understand

the player base in Roblox too and that's something I don't 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 um but building out our IPS in the 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 U 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 um yeah that's really where we're at um on the topic of making money I wanted to trans transition over to a little bit of you know looking at the fortnite econ economy a bit we had Sergey gunin from who was previously at Epic uh 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 uh felt that way uh or what alternative he might have had

in mind um I don't know about an alternative but I think um 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 Tik Tok 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 M like which is a good thing too like it's so easy to jump in but it's also like creates such bad actors who will literally cheat um 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 think like this ease of Engagement based payouts would be bad but it's also a good thing that's my perspective I don't my my guess is he's saying that because it's such a huge investment and like it's a huge risk um I mean epic is taking a huge risk on this where they could just make a ton of money off of Battle Royale put 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 in US and uh 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 uh as opposed to doing engagement payouts uh but I also think road map to the success there would be a lot slower in for for fortnite in general and I I think Tim has watched Roblox grow over 15 20 years I 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 Roo Etc works really well and I think Tim wants to accelerate that he wants to bring in better developers to have people making studios in this space and growing um 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 robu are but they're going to have to

give us some way to monetize within Maps um I think first long-term sustainability but I think for now the engagement payouts are accelerating the growth of the platform and um and yeah so I think that's why but I I also see it as I mean gosh before ufn even before ufn creative mode was almost half of the plays on fortnite 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 I I agree with engagement payouts but I think long term they're going to have to have other monetization options so I want to throw out some alternative models uh from the ugc space and just see how it lands with you guys because you know to your point they are SP they are paying a lot of money to the to to the ecosystem and there are other models out there I'm just curious from

your guys' perspective would any of these resonate uh 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 yeah I but there but like beginning at creative 1.0 there was literally solo devs you know that made it you know I think pville 2v2 map was the first map I he was a solo Dev and now he has his whole team and it's just yeah that that does cut out like kind of the heart of the first creative at the beginning so I mean sure if they want to do that for me but like I mean I I don't think that

that'd be the approach that would alienate a lot of like people 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 I my one 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 quit my job and make video games in fortnite um if you restrict it to 300 people there's no hope right there it's just it's really just an exclusive Dev community that gets to you we can all get rich together so I I 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 just pops off and does really well and

um I mean and that's 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 did 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 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 I I you're not going to see the success that YouTube has had yeah I agree all right next model uh 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 Cosmetic sales I know 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 uh something 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 TM in my opinion it's just like yeah well this isn't necessarily to replace either this is like ju what do you think about this as a as a you know comparable I think it would be cool I think I think they should have more um ability to have additional skins additional back blings dances or whatever that can be um that we could sell in our own maps and maybe maybe it transfers over I don't know that'd be cool uh 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 my hope is eventually I want epic to release some of those in the item shop right and like do like some sort of collaboration and I 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 I mean I hope epic continues do to do that I think it's a great model um 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 could 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 I would love that so how about you mentioned steam mustard so so uh 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 fortnite had paid content where you could make the premium

content that you're making right like i' 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 a Rog light system you've got uh you've got got hero system like you can pick your hero so Legend oh Legend sorry come on David I'm I'm speaking it from like a just just just I I I say hero a lot in a typical gameer he's like you say Legend all right um but yeah so like so what yeah I I I think a system like that would be a really hard sell on fortnite um I think it would be interesting I would love to see it like tried like a $5 game or something um I think someone like Berto or us could pull that off with our audiences and saying like I don't think I don't think just a random game would work I think you you wouldd have to have an audience that you're like hey go

pay5 in v-bucks or whatever to to get into this game and I think it it could work um 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 um I think I'm more interested in fortnite saying a free-to-play model and and then bringing the games out into the Epic uh the Unreal Engine system which could include steam which could include the Epic gam store or whatever um 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 a bigger game around it and then we're going to release it on Steam and drive our audiences there um so that that to me makes more sense in the long term and

I think that's coming in the next five years but um I think I don't think I don't think a paid version would work in fortnite but I'd love to see it tried I just don't think it'd work my I feel like epic might not want to like pass their players off to steam for monetization purposes right like wouldn't they want to be like well sell your games on our platform uh instead I I don't no epic is traditionally a an engine right that's that is Tim swinger is an engine like mindset versus a game developer and to them they're like as long as you're building the game with an 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 gam store but um yeah I think in the end it's they're an engine company and they they don't want to developing games they want us to be developing games and then them getting a cut of it 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 right 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 mustered year you know you said you have 20 employees so you know just you know Mental Math uh it's like $2.5 million two to $2.5 million uh annual in salaries that you're paying uh you need to be making a significant

chunk of money on the platform and and so if they're paying 320 a year $320 million a year you need to have like almost 1% 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 uh 20 employees or more like how are they going to have a large enough Creator base to completely replace you know Battle Royale that's a good question I mean I don't I 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 even think that's what the metaverse is about you look at you YouTube once again we're going to go back to YouTube I think it's a A Perfect Analogy not everyone's Mr Beast you know a million dollar Creator and there's there's a maybe there's five

or 10 creators in that whole Space of millions and millions of people creating content that are in that Echelon of you know making money making business Etc um but there's little people like me that I can make a a fine living by myself creating content on YouTube and um 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 um but uh like you can quit your job and keep making games in in fortnite um 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 this there's so much bias in the statement I think it's the right amount um because are people that are trying to do more I

I struggle a little bit I don't 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 they're just making a ton more they're not really contributing to the space other than just maintaining uh 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 uh 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 B what do you think I I yeah no I I think the the latter part of your question is saying should the distrib 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 in like any like this example for your red vers blue but like it's so funny because the first red vers blue did not change much besides the vending machines until typical Gamers uh and Joo pushed super red vers blue and now it's like now their map is trying to copy the other version like to keep up so I I I think it's like I think this number is good uh 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 I think it would be bad if it would 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 gonna like give it to the less play 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 I think think I think they deserve it they they invest they a lot

of players like they don't come to play fortnite they come to play like the pig that that is their fortnite and for me I I like that was me because I I played fortnite all the time like I am so lazy I don't want to drop down get weapons like 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 playouts are like so strong to like bring in the competition yeah and and I agree with you on that brto 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 when they take those top Maps whatever top 10 which are mostly combat maps and push them way down in Discovery um I think it's brought all of the plays down for all of the maps versus I think a lot of 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 the other whatever top 50 Maps they were getting way more plays too 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 I think epic has made a mistake in trying to um diversify the games uh and in in doing that they have reduced plays for all the maps uh 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 um yeah I agree with you Berto I think it is they are I I hate to say no one's deserving of money because I 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 um and um yeah I think it's fair I think it is fair I think the the maps that get the

play should get the get the pays 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 uh 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 uh so these are like kind of like old maps that still have like that 500 CCU kind of right I was no I mean I was thinking like uh you know go goed the pit you know 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's like a go goed there too with the VR so like people know it so well and people just I mean fortnite's Battle Royale people like fighting and those games are like just 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 I think but like why 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 uh and presumably you know 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 and make it make a better version of the pit it or make a better of the pit and be successful yeah they've tried um 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 is very important to the ecosystem where you can see the 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 vers 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 fortnite but come back to play the new chapter 2 update tomorrow they're going to still have in their favorites a pit that they favored it four years ago go 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 um and then there's also the recommendation section I think is pretty strong um 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 go goated red vers blue or or even newer Maps like our red versus blue or or those mini games like you have 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 um versus someone that has these Legacy players super interesting um you mentioned sort of your sense that uh 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 uh and and it 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 uh 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 um they're moving to that oh they are yeah exactly I think they're working on that it's it's probably much easier said than done uh otherwise epic would have done it already um 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' 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 U for epic and something that

would benefit the influencers as well I so yes there are a lot of YouTubers that are thinking about it um a ton uh 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 um that's the reason and because 80% of the players in Roblox are mobile and that's why it's more casual gameplay on Roblox because you're pulling up your your phone or your your iPad and kids are able to C Play Casual games like tycoons or Power Defense or or whatever uh versus fortnite is PC and console where they want to shoot they want to sweat they want to have competition uh it's just a different mindset when you're playing on your console or on your PC than 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 um 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 they come to play Battle Royale and they want similar experiences um so yeah that's my that's my answer there it's a I think when mobile is more accessible to fortnite it would those those will translate much better yeah I mean I I used to play fortnite on my iPad and it was awesome uh like it it was awesome because it was also just a new way to play the game uh

that made it feel novel uh and I could just play wherever I went which was cool too yeah if we if that had never happened if if EP epic had never picked that fight I think creative mode would be much bigger right now Berto anything to add on your end uh no I I mean just from as a Creator 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' still be a tough sell like why would they just not stay on what they love the Roblox tycoons that 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 yeah there's an average of 6,000 uh players playing fortnite in Roblox uh I just looked this up recently so just just a fun fact like that'd be a that'd be like a top 20 game on fortnite

yeah crazy I think there I I think there are there is a space though in fortnite for things like you know um not like gosh what's I always get confused like role playing versus RPGs like so like a Brook Haven or something a place you can hang out in fortnite like a party Royale um but done better than party Royale with I think there's place for that and I think there's place for like man if someone can right now some of the bigger games like uh block fruits just doesn't really work because of our limitations and memory and stuff but that can change really fast as soon as they can have crossmap persistence and stuff like that could be really cool and that's going to open up the PO possibility for really cool different game modes and I think the fortnite audience would still gravitate gravitate to you it's just GNA take some time so when you say crossmap

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 that after level one you go to a different map and play level two and you go to different map and play level three gotcha y um that's super interesting so on the topic of like looking to the Future at epic's road map 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 uh I know one feature is going to benefit us a lot which is like um how their favorites system now you can like follow creators and that's just really huge for both of us because they have 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 in 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 miname like they will know so I'm excited for that that's a big one is that connected so you said is that connected to Creator profile or is that a separate feature 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 okay that's interesting because 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 I'm excited because it's going to be like subscri it's going to be like

subscribing to a channel on YouTube and they'll I assume there will be like a subscription feed or like yeah new new updates from your from your follow who you follow kind of thing that be cool that's great yeah yeah I think building loyalty is really important and something that's been missing on the platform so far so for me there's a there's quite a few things I'm excited for in the future um when it comes to to like 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 um and that that's going to really change things um to be able to not just rely 100% on what epic's giving us for weapons that'll be big um I'm also really excited what what is this system Berto that they graph scene graph thank you so I'm really

excited about scene graph I think scene graph is going to give us way more control over our Maps like you can control each individual piece through verse which is a huge deal like for now we're like relying on some really like lame kind of lame systems to have like total control right but SC graft gives us 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 yeah um% I I love um I mean gosh there's so many things like they have new physics uh tools coming out which will be really cool um 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 um and then giving us just more control over what we can persist in verse um

is 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 bro 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 it's one of the questions I asked epic I know this is uh maybe something we want to talk about but epic is committed to making fortnite Battle Royale in ufn and I I asked when they announced that at the I think it was at GDC I asked them like well are you guys going to do it under 100,000 memory and he's like oh he's like ask me in a year [Laughter] 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 pit is like it's almost 100K it's like what's the reason for that restriction is it economical or is it just from a performance perspective it's for uh yeah said it's for performance just so it's performing well on mobile the download speed isn't too long and yeah yeah you can you can get into the map quickly got it basically yeah yeah that makes sense opposed to downloading a 100 Gig game which EP which fortnite is so yeah I uh I hopped into both of your guys's 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 it's like 10 seconds and you're in in the next game that's 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 is if they spend less time just loading into

Maps 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 uh so 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 next year um yeah so that that is going to be a big deal as well where it's just less memory for fortnite in general and that should free up space for us too in our Maps I hope what do you guys think about um 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 um 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 um and how do you feel about you know the the current IP that they have yeah no they they're asking the exact same question will you guys make MTH with these IPS and uh so far in Creative nothing has really like reached top 50 right I I don't think I've even seen any so like for these I don't know the IP at least for the the negative of the Lego is there's only like three weapons there's only three items like how much can you really do for TN is it like is it worth it to take the 15% 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 but it's just like four melee weapons and you you're not melling 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 those Marvel mythics or like the Dragon Ball Z mythics that are like really like change the game play and like people miss and love like that's when I would be compelled but at the moment none of these have like the give me the urge of like oh I need to go make this map like now for TMNT for Lego for uh Fall Guys personally yeah I feel the same way it's just like uh and as a YouTuber you see what people respond to in your videos too people don't respond to teenage mut inja turtles they don't respond to Lego maybe Lego a little bit more um for me at least uh but mostly they only care about Marvel and an the anime stuff I think uh yeah Dragon Ball Z my hero Academia was okay um but one piece yeah

well one wait we haven't had anything one piece no I know but theoretically if they did that would be huge you're right it'd be huge um 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 and get you know one or 2,000 concurrence fairly consistently for a few weeks or something um so I think it is good for that I think it's not great for bigger teams unless they just released like the if they released the teenage meat 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 wall Gardens as opposed to just being like just give it to everyone and we'll Market you the that your stuff like crazy because because we have to if we don't then someone else is going to do it and their map's going to pop off the one positive thing about T man

internals 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 too 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 yeah it's tough it's tough because you're talking into two of the top creators here and for us 15% is a big deal um versus smaller Creator 15% is like I'll give you 15% of zero you know like whatever and it's like if I can make $100 I'll give you 15% 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 if 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 self for us makes

sense so I feel like we could talk for for hours I know we gota we start to wrap things up I wanted to give you I one thing I wanted to ask is uh I've seen some conversation about 1.0 versus 2.0 and I wanted to get your guys' perspective like what does it mean and also is what is the relationship uh in the broader ecosystem uh for for these people who identify in both buckets or in either bucket yeah I think mustard has a more inside approach this is from my outside perspective i' I never was part of the creative 1.0 Community like 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 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 their complaint 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

Joo 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 they there's a good there's a good chunk of people from creative 1.0 that have actually given up yep because two but the Ben but like at the vice versa 2.0 has accelerated stuff where it's like yeah now people are having live events in fortnite 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 Cod 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 or I think so I mean I I've been in the space since it was created and creative 1.0 was a 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 um like there was a huge audience just to go and build and just have fun in there like because it was console PC all the everyone could go in it was it was part of fortnite you go in 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 um and it wasn't a business before and people have like BTO was saying you got Studios now that are coming in or people that have there's 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 theane 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 fortnite creative now the skill Gap is you know massive and it's hard when you

see whoa yeah Joo does a live event we built that in less than two weeks it was oh man it was crazy I that's a whole other Berto we were down to hour before before we submitted the bill oh my God and there was so many bugs we're just like please work please work 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 program was like fixing it the last minute so it would work and it worked and um it's hard to compete with that but also when ufn came out they said it has to be PC so that cut out 80% of the audience and then you have to be 18 so that cut out another 90% of the audience and so like for me that I took a huge hit on YouTube because people are like I can't even do this so I'm out I'm not going to do this anymore and um 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% of those people because they're like I just can't do this like these tools are so Advanced versus you know playing building on your controller and um so yeah but there are some people in one point 1.0 who 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 like and I was like I don't even build anymore because I'm building a business I 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 three or four years you won't even hear 1.0 anymore and they they they feel it they feel it 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 and then and then on top of that the bug fixing with like a 100 devices like that you have to like work with in fortnite like I was like I'm so glad I didn't make maps back then like so glad but oh man it was when it first came out you 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 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 happens versus like oh I'm going to get this device to connect to that device connect to this device to make this thing happened 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 Berto and I it's a little unfair for us because well not unfair is the wrong word um we just have we have we have advantages that we've worked hard to build beforehand and now we're using um they can do that too it just takes a long time it's hard to do but um yeah yeah so it's it's it is a weird kind of fight I want to say fight there's a definitely a difference between ufn developers and 2.0 but I think it's necessary for the space to evolve yeah yeah makes sense um 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 um 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 um you know where would you you know if you were to say where where should people follow up with

you uh for me Tik Tok YouTube Berto Twitter Berto bro and then LinkedIn Michael Hall um that's that one's a little different but yeah that's that's all the places yeah I mean just Google mustard plays you can connect with me on Twitter Youtube LinkedIn whever yeah awesome sounds good well thanks for coming guys really enjoyed this conversation thank you anytime [Music] if you enjoyed today's episode whether on YouTube or your favorite podcast app make sure to like subscribe comment or give a fstar review and if you want to reach out or provide feedback shoot us a note at podcast nov. or find us on Twitter and Linkedin plus if you want to learn more about what navic has to offer make sure to check out our website www.nic.edu wide ranging Consulting and advisory Services again that is www.nic.edu

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