Hello Fortnite developers,
We’ve been accelerating improvements this past year and the redesigned Discover has rolled out to all players today. We’re also adding a new Trending row, giving an update on how our work on Discover is progressing and talking about where we’re going next. More details below.
Trending Row
Starting today, we’re testing a new Trending row with portrait tiles near the top of Discover.
The Trending row helps games that are resonating with players get more exposure so they can maintain their momentum, while the New row is aimed at getting new games in front of players.
Trending looks at each island’s concurrent player growth with its own usual pace for that day and compares it with the concurrent player growth across other islands in Fortnite. The row rotates islands out after they peak, featuring new islands that are starting to surge.
Trending primarily looks for growth from players finding your island themselves (e.g. via search, recently played, creator pages, island codes, links), and to a lesser extent, activity from algorithmically-driven Discover rows (e.g. genre rows). That means the players you bring in through your own channels are the most powerful way for new islands to reach Trending.
As a reminder, we’ll be continuously testing and experimenting across all rows in Discover, including Trending.
Where we’re seeing progress
New row visibility
Earlier this year, we instituted a new process to determine which islands appear in the New row, built to give new islands multiple chances in front of players. Instead of a single brief window, we now rotate all eligible islands through the row, giving several chances to be seen across different times of day during its first couple of weeks. Nearly all new islands that pass our quality checks now appear in the New row within their first week.
Player browsing trends
The redesigned Discover is widening what players see:
Time to first 100 players
New islands now reach their first 100 players faster than before the April changes, though recent weeks are slower than the summer peak. About half of new islands reach 100 players within four weeks.
Discover is converting more impressions into plays
Through the spring and summer, the rate at which the tiles shown in Discover turned into engaged plays (played for 5 minutes or more) rose by up to 50%.
Retention post-redesign
In the latest week, next-day retention for players new to Fortnite rose slightly, and overall next-day retention and total match hours held steady.
Genre accuracy and spam removals
To reduce clutter in genre rows, last week we began updating the genres for miscategorized islands so that they match the game’s content. We’re also continuing ban waves, removing both the islands and the accounts behind them, giving quality islands more room to reach players.
Coming soon: Rising and Hero Carousel Updates
Rising: a new algorithm that helps promising new islands get found in the right genre after they exit the New row. When players are enjoying a new island, Rising places it near the front of genre rows, above the fold, for players with similar tastes. In an October test, it brought about 350k more engaged players to nearly 1,200 new islands than a control group. We’re rolling it out to everyone shortly.
Updates to the Hero Carousel: The hero carousel at the top of Discover will be updated to include algorithmically-recommended islands alongside curated picks, giving more islands a shot at being above the fold. To be eligible, make sure your island has a trailer uploaded that follows these guidelines.
Discover on the Roadmap: Starting today, you’ll find upcoming Discover features on the Fortnite Developer Roadmap, where you can vote and comment on each one.
Looking ahead
We’re continuing to work on new ways for developers to reach players and continue growing. We appreciate your feedback as we keep working to make Fortnite better for developers and players.
Thanks for building with us.
