Fortnite’s creators and creator studios are more and more at odds over learn how to correctly promote on the platform.
Metaverse advertising and marketing is heating up in 2025, and types’ exercise in Fortnite isn’t any exception. Advertisers’ spending on the platform has grown considerably prior to now yr: Between 2023 and 2024, the variety of model activations inside Fortnite elevated by 99 p.c year-over-year — from 136 activations in 2023 to 270 in 2024 — with branded Fortnite maps at present accounting for 33 p.c of all manufacturers’ virtual-world activations, in keeping with information platform GEEIQ’s 2025 State of Manufacturers in Gaming and Digital Worlds report.
Most model activations in Fortnite at present take the type of {custom} experiences designed to advertise particular person advertisers, like The Basic’s “Highway Take a look at Royale” and Dairy Max’s “Diner Tycoon.” Manufacturers sometimes spend between $300,000 and $500,000 on one of these {custom} map, in keeping with 4 entrepreneurs with data of the area. Creator studios like Look North World and Zoned act as manufacturers’ businesses inside Fortnite, constructing their digital worlds and hiring creators to advertise them to their followers. Neither creator studios nor particular person creators are formally affiliated with Epic Video games.
However as advert {dollars} pour in, creators warn that advertisers could also be overspending. 5 Fortnite creators and expertise managers informed Digiday that they imagine manufacturers are overspending on the platform by focusing their efforts on custom-branded maps, somewhat than integrations into pre-existing widespread experiences, which often value between $20,000 and $50,000.
For instance, Good Players — the event crew of Fortnite content material creator Dylan “TheBoyDilly” Johnson — at present fees most model purchasers lower than $100,000 to combine into its video games, in keeping with Good Players strategic partnerships supervisor Zack Billingham. At present, Good Players operates three of the top-10 hottest maps on Fortnite, together with “Go Goated” and “Homicide Thriller.”
Fortnite creator Dagwummy, the co-developer of widespread maps like “Minigame Field PVP,” believes integrations give each manufacturers and creators room to maneuver.
The controversy between custom-built maps and integrations on Fortnite parallels related tensions that arose between creators and studios on Roblox earlier this yr. As Fortnite creators develop extra vocal about their imaginative and prescient for model activations on Fortnite, the conflict reveals how the creator financial system on Fortnite is evolving in related methods to the Roblox creator financial system — simply lagging barely behind.
“Roblox is way extra superior,” mentioned Dario Raciti, the director of Omnicom’s gaming group Zero Code. “They’ve accelerated and opened as much as advertisers extremely quick over the previous yr.”
The creator perspective
The crux of the argument between Fortnite’s creators and businesses is measurement metrics — an rising focus for advertisers on the platform as manufacturers scrutinize the ROI of their creator spend in 2025. Fortnite creators view a map’s peak concurrent participant rely as the last word marker of its success, with Good Players reaching peak participant numbers within the tens of 1000’s for its widespread experiences. However, custom-branded maps like The Basic’s “Highway Take a look at Royale” usually garner peak concurrent participant numbers within the a whole bunch — which is why creators like Billingham imagine manufacturers are losing cash by spending a whole bunch of 1000’s of {dollars} on one of these activation.
To spotlight the effectiveness of integrations into pre-existing Fortnite maps over {custom} branded maps, Billingham flagged an April Popeye’s marketing campaign inside “Homicide Thriller,” a preferred Good Players map. Along with reaching 721,000 distinctive guests, the expertise satisfied 892 gamers to redeem a coupon for a free rooster sandwich in alternate for making a social put up that used the hashtag #PopeyesPickleQuest.
“Manufacturers don’t must rely solely on PR or influencers to achieve players. An thrilling integration in a high sport, paired with advertising and marketing, ensures each consideration and affect,” he mentioned.
The studio/company perspective
However Fortnite’s company–studios and the manufacturers that work with them argue that peak concurrent gamers is just one of a constellation of metrics that point out the efficiency of a branded map. Within the case of The Basic’s current launch, for instance, Look North World CEO Alexander Seropian mentioned that his firm had designed the sport much less for long-term excessive concurrent participant counts and extra as a part of a broader marketing campaign that additionally included Twitch streamers similar to Faheem “T-Ache” Najm. Seropian mentioned that the broader marketing campaign had introduced in over 50 million complete views, a metric that he mentioned was way more related to the model than uncooked participant counts.
“The intention of that activation [type] is to carry a model into the Fortnite ecosystem — to begin making a relationship between the model and the gamers. In that particular case, it’s as a lot concerning the partaking play as it’s concerning the publicity,” he mentioned. “Typically, we measure that publicity in impressions and views.”
The client perspective
Participant turnout apart, The Basic counted its Fortnite map as a win. The Basic advertising and marketing director Chauncey Citchens declined to share particular efficiency numbers, citing the continued nature of the marketing campaign, however famous that the model had generated extra impressions by hiring widespread Twitch streamers to broadcast themselves taking part in the map.
“Our greatest KPI is consciousness; it’s not sport performs,” Citchens mentioned.
Nonetheless, disappointing participant counts have satisfied some manufacturers to pivot away from {custom} Fortnite maps and towards integrations into pre-existing experiences.
“We don’t give attention to brand-owned Fortnite maps,” mentioned Chris Mann, an svp on the company REVXP, which leads the gaming technique of manufacturers like Chipotle. “One of many issues we realized shortly was, for those who’re going to do a map, it’s essential put media behind it, and it’s essential put the media behind it the place gamers are taking part in. I believe a extra impactful manner in for manufacturers in Fortnite is to work with present map creators to discover a worth including in for that have.”
Mann flagged low participant counts as one cause for his lack of curiosity in Fortnite maps.
“When you have a look at brand-owned Fortnite maps, even among the greatest manufacturers on the planet wrestle on attracting gamers,” he mentioned. “Main manufacturers peaking at sub-200, sub-100, typically sub-50 peak participant counts. That doesn’t really feel like a robust and goal-driving funding.”
In the end, the fitting approach to present up inside Fortnite is a matter of a manufacturers’ particular targets, in keeping with Sami Barnett, senior director of gaming for the company TMA, who mentioned that the constructive press and influencer impressions that may include a totally {custom} branded map can nonetheless be priceless to the fitting manufacturers, even when participant counts are low.
“A whole lot of the time, manufacturers need that full, ownable second, so I believe that’s the profit there,” Barnett mentioned. “From a creator’s perspective, they’re constructed on concurrent viewers and concurrent gamers; when these are low, that indicators to them, ‘this can be a failure.’ So, neither facet is unsuitable — they’re simply measuring various things.”
Raciti mentioned that he doesn’t advocate purchasers construct their very own Fortnite maps except they’re an leisure property with significantly robust homegrown IP that would entice gamers’ consideration. He mentioned that integrating right into a pre-existing expertise is his most popular choice, each as a result of it’s cheaper and since it permits manufacturers to sidestep the problem of discoverability on Fortnite’s platform.
“I can’t even keep in mind the final time that we advisable anyone to construct their very own sport, whether or not it’s a cellular sport or in Fortnite or in Roblox,” Raciti mentioned. “We all the time advocate they discover a place that matches their model inside a kind of video games that already has a big viewers.”
