Hi,
With the recent situation surrounding device setting limits, it has become very apparent that communication between Epic and creators when it comes to major changes falls short. In the last month or so alone, at least 3 changes have been made that have caused massive upset among the creative community, including:
- The sudden change to rules surrounding the use of Epic’s IP, which led to many maps being cancelled and creators quitting.
- The new system for detecting title and thumbnail copying falsely flagging maps.
- And now the changes to device limits and memory calculation.
Each one of these controversies could have been avoided if the community was asked whether each change would negatively affect their maps. For example, with the device limits, Epic should have made sure that everyone was happy with the limits before setting a date for them to be enforced. However instead, people opened the patch notes, only to see that they were now going to be locked out of publishing their maps again in 2 weeks’ time.
Furthermore, there have been various major editor-breaking bugs that creators reported but were left unfixed for months without any visible updates on their progress, such as the Platform Cook error, leaving creators unable to let their followers know when a map would be published, which can severely harm audience retention.
I have a few suggestions as to how communication can be improved between Epic and creators:
- Epic should post major changes in advance, asking the community for feedback first before committing to implementing them. As mentioned before, this would significantly reduce the amount of detrimental changes that occur as the community can point out when a change may have unintended side effects.
- Following the previous point, we need patch notes to be released prior to the day of the update. Currently, creators only find out on the day of the update what changes are occurring, either good or bad, leaving creators with little time to prepare their maps for an update. For example, if Physics beta released in v37.10, creators would only find out that morning, leading them to rush to finish their maps so they can be released quickly, before the feature’s novelty and increased engagement wears off. Releasing the patch notes a few days early, at least in a partial form, would allow Creators more time to plan and prepare for updates.
- We need a public Trello board for bug reports, similar to Battle Royale. Currently, if creators want to know the current progress on a bug, they need to search through the forums to see if they can find a bug report on it. With a Public Trello board, Creators can see a list of known issues and progress on them (for example, if a bug is investigating, in development, fixed in next update, etc). This would give creators reassurance that Epic is aware of, and working on, the issue, and would also help to eliminate duplicate reports on the forums.
I believe in this ecosystem and its potential, but in order for it to truly flourish, creators need to be treated like partners and not users. Strong communication is key to building trust between creators and Epic.