By Doug Clinton and Steve VanSloun of Loup Ventures

• Fornite (Epic Games) recognizes the importance of the influencer community on gamers perhaps better than any other publisher.
• Fortnite recently announced “Support-a-Creator,” a way for players to support their favorite video makers, streamers, storytellers, artists, cosplayers, musicians, and community builders.
• Players select a Creator to support, and the Creator receives 5% of all V-buck purchases a player makes.
• There are 1,345 different Creators to support today.
• The event starts Monday, October 8th, and runs through the end of the year.

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Fortnite’s announcement of Support-a-Creator will incentivize players to spend more V-Bucks in the holiday season, as they know a portion of their proceeds will go to the Creators they favor. Players have the option to select a Creator to support, and every V-Buck purchase they make will count towards that Creator. Every 14 days, the Creator selection is reset, and players can reselect the same Creator or choose a new one.

Creators will receive $5 for every 10,000 V-Bucks players spent using their tags. For context, 1,000 V-Bucks is $9.99, so for every $99.99 that a player spends on Fortnite, Epic will pay 5% to Creators. We expect to see a power law distribution with top Creators earning a majority of the total payout from Epic.

While the vast majority of Creators won’t see a lot of money through this program, it’s a new way in which: 1) Epic Games is attempting to incentivize monetization, and 2) Epic is choosing to share revenue with other partners. This experiment could lead to other monetization methods such as Creator-designed skins and emotes. Fortnite’s “Support-a-Creator” program may be setting the stage for another revenue source for streamers, game studios themselves. It’s clear that Epic understands how important influencers are in motivating consumers, especially younger consumers, to spend money on products.

Disclaimer: We actively write about the themes in which we invest or may invest: virtual reality, augmented reality, artificial intelligence, and robotics. From time to time, we may write about companies that are in our portfolio. As managers of the portfolio, we may earn carried interest, management fees or other compensation from such portfolio. Content on this site including opinions on specific themes in technology, market estimates, and estimates and commentary regarding publicly traded or private companies is not intended for use in making any investment decisions and provided solely for informational purposes. We hold no obligation to update any of our projections and the content on this site should not be relied upon. We express no warranties about any estimates or opinions we make.

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