Former Epic Games creative exec shares the idea that unlocked Fortnite’s billion-dollar success.
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Fortnite was an ambitious game right from the get-go, and the free-to-lay sensation owes its success to a spoke diagram drawn on a dry-erase board way back in 2017. Ex-Fortnite creative officer Donald Mustard recently shared what appears to be Epic’s ‘north star’ for the battle royale. I
t’s called The Fortnite Hub, and it aimed to transform Fortnite from a game into a digital space with its own social ecosystem and game modes. This could be one of the earliest plans for gaming’s growing metaverse aspirations. Fortnite has defined social gaming for years with its live concerts and in-game events, not to mention the plethora of crossovers with billion-dollar brands across multiple industries.
3The Hub is definitely a framework that’s helping facilitate the nascent Games-as-a-Platform business concept for the interactive entertainment industry, which sees games can being distributed and played within other games. Epic and its partners just launched three new live service games that can be played within Fortnite itself, including an innovative and highly-praised Lego mode. Other examples include Ubisoft’s upcoming Assassin’s Creed Infinity game, and Roblox was a big innovator in this space as well.
Here’s what Donald Mustard said about Fortnite’s billion-dollar Hub idea.
“I think this is the first time we kinda drew out our crazy idea. The idea to evolve Fortnite into a ‘place,’ a place where you could have all sorts of different agency-driven game and entertainment experiences with your friends – all connected by your ‘hub’ (your locker, cosmetics, progression, etc).
“It was such a huge, audacious, vision. We knew it would take years and so much work on so many fronts.
“We (can’t believe how close we were) guessed it would take about 6 years. The plan changed and evolved a million times, but today you are playing the true vision of the dream of Fortnite.”
