I’m a young creator who just recently jumped into everything Unreal with the launch of UEFN - I have spent so many hours building up the game of my dreams, designing, modeling, recording sounds, all of it. Something so satisfying about all of it.
But I feel so disheartened by how hard it is for me to get my games out there, specifically in Fortnite. Hyperwallet has been a disaster - constantly disabled, asked for info, confirmation, back and forth with support that just randomly ends - and because of this, I can’t publish anything.
What I don’t understand is why Epic is under the impression that everyone wants to make money off their projects. I’m sure its a big thing, but what about for those of us that don’t? Why cant we just get our stuff out there and show it to the world, and then monetize later if we want?
More specifically, why isn’t there a young creators program yet after all these years? So much of the player base is under 18 and gating off the creativity from everyone seems like shooting yourselves in the foot. Even with parental consent, which I and many other have , it is so incredibly difficult to get things to work. I worry I wont ever be able to publish any of my maps.
I just hope someone important sees this and takes this seriously - I really do think there’s so many people out there who are unable to show their creations to the world because of the limitations of publishing and the island creator program.
That’s a great point. I think the only thing that Epic truly needs to ponder is how to keep so many maps out that are of such low quality. They already have that problem (so I realize it’s not a “no monetization” policy) as it’s clear in the list of “popular” games in creative, but I think they imagine it raises the bar for creators. You make a good point though about that some people just want to create and put out there. Epic has been responding to more posts lately so hopefully they’ll get back to you.
Staying hopeful about it. My efforts with player support to get my island creator account reinstated have been pretty much worthless.
I agree that there is a lot of trash on Discover right now. While I think it’s probably just because UEFN is brand new and people don’t know what they are doing, I do agree that there should be some quality control in place.
Perhaps an Island Creator Lite program? Like the regular one, but without monetization, possibly reduced engagement on the Discover page, and with a lower bar to entry (like no tax forms or social media follower requirements)? Maybe that could be an entry point for people starting out with creative and then they could move up after their islands get to a certain popularity, or they are manually approved by epic for being good in quality.
