Creator Payouts
Status: Admitted as platform direction
The Realm economy contracts (R-ECON-*) and the creator-revenue-policy.md / world-creator-economy.md framings are admitted at the spec level. Payout flows, settlement cadence operationalization, and withdrawal UI are admitted as direction; the user-facing payout surface is not shipped.
What "Payouts" Means
A creator who builds a world earns from gifts, purchases, and share-plan settlements made within that world. Payouts are the typed pipeline from those earnings to the creator's withdrawn funds — accruing in append-only events, settling per share plan, withdrawn through admitted flows.
This page explains the pieces. It does not promise dates.
Authority Surface
| Concern | Authority |
|---|---|
| Realm economy contract (append-only, separate from narrative) | R-ECON-001..R-ECON-004 |
| World creator economy bridge | realm/world-creator-economy.md |
| Creator revenue policy (share plans, settlement) | realm/creator-revenue-policy.md |
| Desktop wallet projection | Desktop kernel (admitted) |
The economy is canonical at Realm. Desktop projects it; share plans and revenue policies attach at the bridge.
Append-Only Revenue Events
Every revenue event is typed and appended:
| Event kind | Purpose |
|---|---|
| Gift | Sender gifts content / participation |
| Purchase | Buyer purchases admitted ownable assets |
| Settlement | Periodic settlement per share plan |
| Withdrawal | Creator withdraws settled funds |
| Correction | Supersedes a prior event under admitted correction flow |
Append-only is the audit foundation. Every revenue event has provenance, timestamp, and typed shape. Settlement events reference the gift / purchase events they settle.
Share Plans
A share plan declares how revenue is split among creators and platform. Plans are explicit; revenue does not flow without an admitted plan. The plan governs:
- Which creators receive shares
- The split percentages
- Settlement cadence
- Withdrawal eligibility
Hidden side splits, retroactive plan changes that mutate prior settlements, or platform-skim outside the declared plan are forbidden.
Boundary Per R-ECON-*
| Rule | Constraint |
|---|---|
R-ECON-001 | Creator economy + access economics remain auditable, explicit, separate from narrative runtime |
R-ECON-002 | AI compute route cost is NOT modeled as Realm core truth or hidden world mutation |
R-ECON-003 | Revenue and settlement use explicit event types and share plans with append-only accounting |
R-ECON-004 | Apps cannot hide economic state changes inside narrative history or memory commits |
The boundary keeps "money flow" from getting tangled with "story flow." A purchase is a typed economy event. A character buying something in-narrative is a story event. They are not the same row.
Reader Scenario: A Gift Becomes A Settlement
A user gifts a creator's world.
- Gift event. Realm appends a typed
Giftevent with provenance: who, what, when, related world. - Time passes. Other gifts and purchases accrue under the admitted share plan.
- Settlement cadence fires. Per the share plan's cadence, a
Settlementevent lands. It references the underlying gift / purchase events it settles. Each creator's share is computed. - Settled funds available for withdrawal. A creator may withdraw settled funds through admitted Withdrawal flow.
- Withdrawal event. Append-only. Provenance attached.
The chain is auditable end-to-end: gift → settlement → withdrawal, all linked by event references.
Reader Scenario: A Correction
A gift was attributed to the wrong world.
- Original gift event. Stays as-is (append-only).
- Correction event. A typed correction event lands; it supersedes the original attribution and provides the corrected one with reason.
- Settlement re-derivation. The next settlement cycle reads the corrected attribution; downstream settlement flows respect the supersede.
- Audit chain. Reviewers see both the original event and the correction; nothing is silently overwritten.
Reader Scenario: A Forbidden Substitution
A maintainer asks: can settlement be embedded inline as a memory commit to skip Realm economy?
- Reject. Per
R-ECON-004, apps cannot hide economic state changes inside narrative history or memory commits. - Re-route. Settlement is a Realm economy event; no other surface may stand in for it.
- Audit posture preserved. The auditable separate stream is what makes payouts trustworthy.
What Creator Payouts Do Not Do
- Promise specific payout dates.
- Promise specific share-plan terms.
- Promise specific withdrawal cadence.
- Allow revenue to flow without admitted share plans.
- Let AI compute cost become Realm truth.
- Let economy events hide inside narrative history or memory.
The "what is admitted" surface is the contract. The "what ships when" question is operational, not contractual.
Boundary Summary
| Concern | Owner |
|---|---|
| Realm economy event stream | Realm (R-ECON-*) |
| Share plans + settlement rules | creator-revenue-policy.md |
| World creator bridge | world-creator-economy.md |
| Wallet UI projection | Desktop kernel (admitted) |