I published a prop hunt map a month ago and received an astounding 3,200 players on my first day. My map appeared in search 24 hours after publishing and players were able to easily find it. After a couple weeks, my player counts started to drop regardless of how many updates I made to the map — including new features, new graphics, new mechanics, new marketing, etc. It seems like Fortnite rarely promotes updated maps, which defeats the purpose of building a player base and updating your map based on player feedback.
Since my player count basically dropped to almost zero, I decided to create a new map. I published it 3 days ago and it has yet to break 7 total players. In fact, it doesn’t appear in search or any of the tagged categories it belongs to.
Why did my first map receive thousands of players and my second map received none?
What incentive to we have as creators to create games if the algorithm is arbitrary and random? Are certain creators favored over others? Is it a lottery system? Is it a waiting list system?
Since the time I published my new map, I’ve seen a handful of other maps launch and receive hundreds of players on their first day — and mine is still nowhere to be seen.
And not to mention, a lot of the maps in the prop hunt category are blatant, low-effort copies of other maps, yet they still seem to succeed in their player counts and popularity.
Can anyone shine some light on what is actually happening here?
Thank you