The inaugural WorldBuilder Summit took place on April 23 at The London West Hollywood in Beverly Hills. The conference was dedicated entirely to creators building virtual worlds and interactive experiences inside platforms like Roblox, Fortnite, and other UGC-based platforms. The room was full of studios, platforms, investors, and builders, but the conversation that kept surfacing was one Black creatives have been having for years: who gets to own IP, who gets to shape culture, and who gets to profit when gaming and Hollywood finally collide?
Hearing Dmitry Johnson, Co-Founder of Story Kitchen, widely recognized as the creators of the Sonic movie franchise, break down how fandom drives franchise value and how he's actively guiding major entertainment studios into the gaming ecosystem made it clear that the people who understand this intersection right now will be the ones who shape the future of digital entertainment.
Pinny and Sam from Project 1961 walked through how they created Grand Theft Hamlet inside of Grand Theft Auto V. Grand Theft Hamlet, a documentary film based in the UK during the 2021 COVID pandemic, became the blueprint for a new kind of storytelling, which will continue to push the boundary between game worlds and film IP in their upcoming NPC project.
Meanwhile, Zander Brumbaugh built infrastructure inside spaces like Roblox with live ops tools that measure player engagement and data across UGC experiences. The technology he created is the kind of back-end intelligence that turns creative worlds into sustainable businesses.
Erika Ewing tied it all together by sharing her experience at Lionsgate which gave her a front-row seat to how Hollywood is now actively chasing gaming IP rather than waiting on it. She spoke about defining culture at the intersection of gaming, film, and TV.
For Black creatives and creators, this moment is critical. The UGC economy, the gaming-to-film pipeline, and the infrastructure being built around creator IP are all spaces where Black talent, storytelling, and community can win. But it will only happen if we're paying attention to what is happening in the industry in real time and pulling resources together to execute.
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