I saw a lot of creators being reminiscent of the past and how we pushed the bar of quality with our content, and I also remembered the general critique of that time being Epic, favoring specific featured creators over everyone else, with few entries making it into the featured slots per category of content (practice, combat, variety). That time had its own issues (even though those creators worked a lot to get there), but now that the ecosystem has switched to an algorithm with the possibility that anyone can make it, I think what truly happens is that the current system is another form of favoritism, just for the wrong goals, because only a few maps hold high CCU and are presented in the forefront of Discovery (not everyone, mind you).
So what really has changed, in my mind, is how favoritism works. In the old system, you made a great level overall, that offered innovation and a fun time, you would get featured because the quality would be superior to another creator’s. Do that enough times and Epic starts to know you as a creator, potentially getting you even involved in events. In the current system, if you offer free skins if someone plays your map and make a post in tiktok with a secret way of getting them, then that offers you a high player count and the system puts you in the front of everyone else. Epic sees you as a creator and they know your name, but they won’t include you in events because they also understand that you didn’t make it there with legit methods.
However, the algorithm doesn’t know that, and human curation did back in the day (for the most part, they still missed a lot less than current system though). So favoritism, in a way, has never stopped to exist, its just now that favoritism is artificial and dilutes the goals of pushing content forward.
So to all those creators that called me out for favoritism back in 2019, and now are thinking to change profession due to how rough it has been lately, I ask, what is better? We now have seen both clique-fair and exploit-fair.