When people talk about the creator economy, they usually mean subscription pages, YouTube channels and brand deals. But one of the fastest-growing paydays belongs to a quieter crowd: the modders, server owners and indie developers building inside the games everyone already plays. According to Forbes‘s Matt Gardner, in-game platform Overwolf says it paid more than $400 million to creators in 2026, a 33% jump from the year before, pushing its lifetime payouts past $1.2 billion.
Three years of bigger checks
The new number caps a steady climb. Gardner reports that Overwolf paid creators $240 million in 2024 and $300 million in 2025, meaning annual payouts have grown nearly 67% in two years. The company is still aiming to pay creators $1 billion a year by 2030.
Overwolf now supports 184,000 creators working across more than 5,000 games, including Minecraft, The Sims 4 and World of Warcraft, and reaches 113 million monthly active users, per Forbes. Mod downloads across its ecosystem have passed 150 billion, up 27% year over year, with 625,000 active mods.
How the money moves
As GamesBeat explains, Overwolf runs a group of businesses that each pay creators in a different way: CurseForge for mods, Overwolf for in-game apps, Tebex for private game server monetization, and Nitro for web game advertising. GamesBeat notes that Tebex alone has processed more than $1.5 billion in transactions.
That mix is the point. Instead of relying on one platform’s algorithm or one payout program, creators can earn from ads, subscriptions and server sales tied to the games their communities already love.
GTA V is still paying out
The most eye-catching figure comes from a 13-year-old game. Both outlets report that creators working on Grand Theft Auto V, through mods, community servers and roleplay servers on Tebex, have earned more than $115 million in 2026 alone. The milestone lands just ahead of Grand Theft Auto VI, which Forbes says launches November 19.
From hobby to full-time
Overwolf pointed to individual success stories too. GamesBeat reports that Francisco “Sandi” Montano started modding as a way to bond with his daughter over a game they both loved. His independent studio, Sandi Studios, has since passed 100 million downloads on CurseForge and brings in up to five figures a month.
Toronto-based developer Abe Train left a corporate business intelligence job to build Globle, a daily geography game that reached more than a million daily players. His Trainwreck Labs portfolio of browser games, monetized through Nitro ads, has generated seven figures in revenue, and Forbes notes he did it without any full-time employees.
“Every single dollar paid out represents a creator who had the vision to improve a game they love and the talent and drive to build it,” Overwolf CEO and co-founder Uri Marchand said in the company’s announcement. He added that “the defining experiences in modern gaming are no longer coming exclusively from traditional studios,” but from “parents, independent developers, and devoted community members.”
The fine print
Gardner offers a fair caution: it’s still not clear how much of this growing economy can reliably support full-time careers. Spread across 184,000 creators, $400 million is a big pool, but like every creator platform, the earnings are likely concentrated at the top. If GTA V is any guide, though, and GTA VI opens similar doors, Gardner suggests the $1 billion target may be within reach.
The takeaway
The creator economy isn’t just faces on camera. Overwolf’s numbers show that people building mods, servers and small games are quietly running real businesses, and that owning a loyal niche community can pay off for years. For any creator, on a subscription site or in a game engine, the lesson is the same: build where your fans already spend their time, and stack more than one way to get paid.
