Virtual-world creators gaining traction beyond Roblox and Fortnite
By Alexander Lee • May 21, 2025 •
Ivy Liu
As virtual-world creators begin building large audiences — and real incomes — on platforms beyond Roblox and Fortnite, advertisers are starting to take notice.
A new kind of creator has emerged in the past two years: the user-generated content (UGC) creator, whose preferred medium is three-dimensional virtual items and worlds, rather than audio, video or text. Platforms such as Roblox and Fortnite have led this charge, with Roblox paying $280 million to UGC creators who published digital avatars or virtual worlds in the fourth quarter of 2024. Advertisers have also poured millions of dollars into these UGC gaming platforms in recent years, solidifying their evolution from video games into full-service creator platforms and marketing channels.
In 2025, UGC creators are starting to find success in smaller UGC platforms beyond the major players Roblox and Fortnite. UGC mini-game creator Soydade, who asked to keep his real name private, boasts a following of nearly 150,000 on the UGC platform Highrise, and has earned over $300,000 over the last two years by charging users to play poker games inside a virtual lounge on the platform.
“Highrise, in general, makes it quite easy to make money on the platform. You earn gold every day based on the engagement your room has, so creators have an incentive to create experiences that players care about,” Soydade said. “Aside from that, you’re also able to monetize experiences within the world.”
Francisco “Sandi” Montaño is another UGC creator whose focus is developing “mod packs,” or alternative skins and other aesthetic updates, for the popular survival video game “Ark: Survival Evolved.” He started selling his mod packs in September 2024, and now makes between $14,000 and $15,000 per month through his creations.
“I’m at 40 million downloads, or something like that, which is just ridiculous,” Montaño said. “I have five or six of the top-10 mods in ‘Ark: Survival’ right now.”
Creators have audiences, and audiences mean eyeballs — so, as creators settle into the second tier of UGC platforms, advertisers are naturally following. And the UGC audience is particularly attractive to brands: Last year, for example, 69 percent of the users inside Walmart’s branded Roblox experience were between the ages of 18 and 25, according to data platform GEEIQ’s 2025 State of Brands in Gaming report. These younger users have often spent their free time inside metaverse platforms like Roblox since they were children, and are just as comfortable participating inside immersive experiences as they are watching videos, listening to podcasts or consuming any other type of media.
In 2024, 558 brands launched new activations in virtual worlds, with 370 of those brands activating alongside UGC content for the first time ever, per the GEEIQ report. Although Roblox and Fortnite still account for the majority of this activity, advertisers’ spending on alternative UGC platforms such as Zepeto, The Sandbox and Minecraft has also risen over the past year, per the report.
Media buyers agree that brands’ interest in virtual-world creators outside Roblox and Fortnite has been increasing. But they cautioned that much of advertisers’ spending on this type of content remains experimental, rather than a sign of major media budgets being unlocked.
“I think there’s tremendous opportunity around game-focused UGC. However, there are also challenges when it comes to brands: first, understanding what you are ‘buying’ and concern around IP usage for the builder. For example, are all of these mods approved? Are they allowed to sell ads or integrations in their mods in these games?” said Chris Mann, svp of the gaming marketing agency REVXP. “This is where a platform like Overwolf has a ton of value.”
Indeed, the clearest sign of advertisers’ mounting interest in UGC content beyond Roblox and Fortnite is the growth of Overwolf’s ad business over the past year. In 2024, Overwolf — an umbrella company that owns a range of different gaming businesses all centered around virtual worlds and UGC creators, including CurseForge, the online marketplace where Montaño sells his game mods — became the fourth-most-visited gaming property in the U.S. This growth allowed the company to reportedly grow its advertising revenue by 15 percent between April 2024 and April 2025, signaling advertisers’ increasing enthusiasm about UGC creators outside Roblox and Fortnite.
“We are always looking for new ways to reach our clients’ audiences in unexpected moments that help break through the overwhelming clutter of today’s saturated media environment,” said Jack Hennessy, executive director of global media for the independent full service agency SCC. “Innovative placements within custom 3D worlds present an opportunity to connect with valuable millennial and Gen Z segments that are growing increasingly numb to more ‘standard’ placements across social feeds and the broader digital landscape.”
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