Core Launches Attack on Roblox's 25/75 Revenue Split for Creators

Image via Manticore's blog, comparing Core's creator-company revenue split to Roblox's split

CEO of Manticore Frederic Descamps just announced a new monetization structure for people who develop games on Core, its new Unreal-based, Epic-funded user-generated game development platform, and it reads very much like a direct attack on Roblox. Because while Roblox has shown seriously impressive company revenue and user numbers, creators who publish games on Roblox only take 25% of the games' revenue. (Even though the top Roblox games are played more often than the top games on Steam.) Now the gauntlet has been thrown:

Core isn’t the first UGC games platform — though it is the first full-service one with high-end graphics and multiplayer gameplay — but creators on our leading competitors generally get only a small piece of the pie. Roblox, for instance, has built an extremely impressive ecosystem for kids, with millions of players and 7 million people making and selling content, but it only pays those creators at most 24.5% of the revenue they generate (which includes a 30% marketplace fee upfront). Other gaming UGC and modding platforms pay even less or nothing at all; many were designed without even considering creator monetization.

This needs to change. We think creators should be paid fairly, and that’s why we’re so excited about what the Perks monetization system means for them. Starting today, in addition to keeping half of the revenue they generate, Core creators will also be able to maximize their earnings by integrating whatever economic system they desire in their games.

It will be interesting to see if top Roblox creators begin moving over to Core, or if Roblox quickly attempts to match/beat this revenue split (at least for the top creators on its platform).

Then again, why should indie developers publish their games on Core for a 50% cut when they could instead publish it on Steam and get a 70% cut, or on the App Store and get a 85% cut (on the first $1 million net)? I put that question to Descamps, who answers this way:

 

“Core is not just a store, it’s a full-service, all-in-one platform. This means game creators get everything they need, end-to-end, in one service to create, iterate on, publish, market, monetize and scale their games. It also includes high-end, ready-to-use multiplayer code, on the fly scalable servers, creator dashboards, integrated payment and more. The marketplace fee of a store is only one piece of the puzzle and doesn’t reflect the total cost of bringing a game from an idea to a player’s fingertips the way Core does. It’s a million-dollar game studio in a box for free.”

Much more here. Given that Core is built on Unreal and is backed by Epic, and Epic has very much been moving toward creating a metaverse, expect even more news soon.

Previously:

• Core Directly Paying Cash To Select Users Who Create Popular Games -- And Letting Them Keep Their Games' Underlying IP Rights!
• Epic Invests In Core To Expand Unreal's Metaverse Potential -- And Increase Its Competitive Advantage Against Apple

 

Comments

[Adeon Writer]

50/50 is still pretty unreasonable if you ask me

[Tankgirl]

Disgusting.

[MrFloof]

Considering that Unreal Engine is (as far as I recall) 0% for 1st million dollars revenue and 5% after that - I find it hard to imagine that the ease of access would actually make it worth building out of core for 50% cut