Platforms are paying players to build their games
On Roblox, Fortnite and Eggy Party, much of the play is in games players build and are paid for. The makers are not employees. Each platform's income rides on hits it does not make. In 2026 Roblox withdrew its forecast as its hits faded.
Latest figure · Q2 2026
$363 million
What Roblox paid or owed its creators in cash for the second quarter of 2026. Roblox calls this line developer exchange fees and reports it as $363 million.
Where it stands
Three platforms now pay their players to build the games other players play. Roblox paid its creators $1.5 billion in 2025, up from $112 million in 2019. Epic Games says Fortnite creators have earned over $1 billion since 2023, and their games took 47% of hours played in May 2026. NetEase says Eggy Party has paid its map makers over 200 million yuan. The money is uneven. Roblox's typical paid creator earned about $1,500 in a year.
Payouts more than doubled in two years, peaked at $477 million in the last quarter of 2025 and fell in both quarters of 2026. Each 2026 quarter is still above the same quarter a year earlier.
SourceRoblox Corporation's quarterly results
| Year | What Roblox paid its creators each quarter, $ millions |
|---|---|
| Q1 2024 | 202.4 |
| Q2 2024 | 208.3 |
| Q3 2024 | 231.5 |
| Q4 2024 | 280.6 |
| Q1 2025 | 281.6 |
| Q2 2025 | 316.4 |
| Q3 2025 | 427.9 |
| Q4 2025 | 477.2 |
| Q1 2026 | 423 |
| Q2 2026 | 363 |
Timeline
2020
Creators' payouts nearly triple in the pandemic year
Roblox's payouts to the people who build its games rise from $112 million in 2019 to $329 million in 2020, as what players spend on the platform goes from $694 million to $1.9 billion.
Roblox Corporation, annual report for 2021 (25 February 2022)
2023
Tencent launches DreamStar to take on Eggy Party
Tencent releases DreamStar in December 2023 as its answer to Eggy Party, NetEase's party game built on maps its players make. By March 2024 it has moved hundreds of staff to the game from other projects. Eggy Party had passed 500 million players in under two years.
2024
A short seller says Roblox overstates its users
Hindenburg Research, a firm that bets on share prices falling, alleges that Roblox overstates its daily users by 25% to 42%. Roblox says its daily user figure counts accounts and is not a measure of unique individuals.
Epic pays Fortnite creators $352 million
Epic Games, which runs a similar scheme inside Fortnite, pays $352 million for the year to about 70,000 creators, up from 24,000 creators the year before. Games made by players account for 36.5% of all time spent in Fortnite.
Tubefilter, James Hale, on Epic's year in review (23 January 2025)
2025
A game started by a 16-year-old draws nearly 22 million players at once
Grow a Garden, begun by an anonymous 16-year-old in March, reaches nearly 22 million simultaneous players in July, more than Fortnite's record of 15.3 million.
Roblox raises the rate it pays creators for the first time in about eight years
Creators earn Robux, the platform's own currency, and exchange it with Roblox for dollars at a rate Roblox sets. Roblox raises that rate by 8.5%, from $0.0035 to $0.0038 per Robux.
Payouts pass $1.5 billion, up 63% in a year
Roblox reports $1.5 billion in payouts to creators for 2025, up 63% in a year, against $6.8 billion spent by players, up about 55%. More than 23,500 creators were paid. Half of all time on the platform, 51%, was spent in its 50 most popular games.
Roblox Corporation, annual report for 2025 (11 February 2026)
2026
Roblox withdraws its forecast for the year
Reporting its second quarter, Roblox declines to repeat its full-year forecast and tells investors to expect player spending in the third quarter to fall 14% to 18% from a year earlier, the first fall it has ever forecast. Quarterly payouts to creators drop from $423 million to $363 million.
About $70 billion of market value is gone in a year
Dexerto calculates that Roblox has lost roughly $70 billion in market value over twelve months, with its shares down about 70%. Roblox's finance chief says players moved away from the high-earning viral games of 2025 toward games that bring in less.
Roblox says the typical paid creator earns about $1,500 a year
Roblox's own report on its economy says more than 42,000 creators are in its cash-out program, that 83% of them are individuals rather than companies, and that the one in the middle earned about $1,500 in the twelve months to June 2026.
Roblox, The Global Impact of Creation on Roblox (September 2026)
Roblox lets creators take their games, and their money, off the platform
At its developers conference Roblox announces Roblox Everywhere, which lets a creator release a Roblox game as a standalone app on phones, PCs and consoles. It also announces Roblox Wallet, which pays creators in real currency every business day, for US creators aged 18 and over later in 2026. A debit card follows in 2027. Roblox says creators earned about $1.7 billion in the twelve months to June 2026, and over $5 billion since 2013.
Epic says Fortnite creators have earned over $1 billion
At Unreal Fest in June, Hannah Lowry, who runs Epic's relations with Fortnite developers, says creators have earned more than $1 billion since Epic opened Fortnite to games made with its editor in 2023. Games made by players took 47% of all hours played in Fortnite in May 2026, up from 38% a year earlier.
Epic pays creators the full value of sales in their games until 2027
Players pay for items inside Fortnite's player-made games, known as islands, with V-Bucks, Fortnite's own currency. From 9 January 2026 to 31 January 2027 Epic pays creators 100% of the dollar value of the V-Bucks spent in their islands, instead of the usual 50%. That value is counted after store and console fees, which Epic says currently average 26%.
Epic Games, In-Island Transactions Overview in Fortnite (read 30 September 2026)
NetEase says Eggy Party has paid its map makers over 200 million yuan
At Eggy Party's fourth creators' conference in July, NetEase says the incentives and revenue shares it has paid to players who build maps have passed 200 million yuan. It calls the past year the first in which those maps were run for money, with 1 billion gold beans, the currency spent inside maps, and more than 5 billion ad plays. NetEase says the game has 600 million players.
Consequences
012026
Roblox's income depends on hits it does not make
Roblox makes no games itself. Its finance chief, Naveen Chopra, put the 2026 shortfall down to players drifting from the 'high monetizing 2025 vintage viral games' to games that earn less. When creators' hits fade and nothing replaces them, a public company's revenue falls with them.
022025
A handful of games carry the platform
Roblox tells its own investors that this is a risk. In December 2025, 51% of all hours on the platform were spent in the top 50 games, and the annual report warns that a fall in their popularity would have a material effect on the business.
Roblox Corporation, annual report for 2025 (11 February 2026)
032026
The money goes to very few
Roblox says its top 1,000 creators earned an average of $1.3 million in 2025. Its own report puts the typical paid creator at about $1,500 a year. The economy is large, and most of the people in it earn very little.
Objections
Counterpoint2026
Every quarter of 2026 is still above the year before
The fall is from a peak, not below the old level. Roblox paid creators $363 million in the second quarter of 2026 against $316 million a year earlier, and its average daily users were 123 million against 111.8 million. What has changed is the direction, and the forecast.
Roblox, second-quarter 2026 shareholder letter (30 July 2026)
Counterpoint2026
Safety checks, not missing hits, may have cost it users
Roblox now checks the age of users who want to chat, and by August 2026 had checked 57% of its daily users. Game Developer reports that the checks reduced chatting and slowed the arrival of new users, as average daily users fell to 123 million in the second quarter of 2026. Roblox's own reports put the peak at 152 million, its average for the third quarter of 2025.
Counterpoint2026
Nobody publishes how the money is shared out
Two widely repeated figures, that the top 1,000 creators take 73% of payouts and that 85% of creators earn under $100 a month, are not Roblox's. Both come from ROLearn, a Roblox tutoring site, the first from its own sample of about 2,000 games. ROLearn itself notes that Roblox does not publish individual earnings. Roblox gives no breakdown by creators' age either.
Counterpoint2026
The 2026 slump was not only about missing hits
TechTimes lists other causes Roblox itself has named besides age checks: a change to its recommendation system that favored keeping players over getting them to spend, and the end of some cross-game sales. Revenue still rose 36% in the second quarter.
What to watch
2026
The first forecast fall in player spending
Roblox's third-quarter results, expected around the end of October 2026. Roblox has forecast a fall in player spending of 14% to 18%. The results will show whether payouts to creators fall with it, and add the next point to this chart.
2027
The first annual report since the downturn began
February 2027, when Roblox's annual report for 2026 is due, the first yearly figures since the downturn began. The debit card is also due to start rolling out in 2027.
2027
The end of Epic's full share for creators
31 January 2027, when Epic's 100% share of in-island sales for Fortnite creators is due to fall back to 50%. The thing to watch is whether Epic extends it, and whether creators' earnings fall when it ends.
Epic Games, In-Island Transactions Overview in Fortnite (read 30 September 2026)
Further reading
- ReportingRoblox loses $70 billion in value as company blames lack of viral gamesdexerto.com
- ReportingUnreal Engine for Fortnite creator payouts surpass $1bnpocketgamer.biz
- ReportingRoblox says it'll help developers release their games as standalone apps across PC, mobile, and consolestubefilter.com
Where to follow it Roblox quarterly earnings and annual reports, Epic's Unreal Fest and Fortnite developer documentation, NetEase earnings calls and the Eggy Party creators' conference, Game Developer, Naavik deep dives