Epic's Roblox, Fortnite Metaverse Planned Along With Unreal Engine 5Epic CEO Tim Sweeney Wants an Interoperable Metaverse and Interoperable Economy
Sweeney told The Verge that Epic is now financially secure enough to realize these plans for the remainder of the decade. "We have a substantial amount of funding compared to pretty much any company in the industry and are making prudent investments that we could adjust as our fortunes change," he explained. "We feel we’re in a prime position to execute for the remainder of this decade and Achieve all of our plans at our size."
Epic's next steps will involve its cutting-edge development tools, Unreal Engine, along with the Unreal Editor for Fortnite—essentially, somewhat of a superb Unreal Engine 6 that combines the two together, which Epic hopes to Achieve in a span of multiple years. "The real power will come when we merge these two worlds together so we have the entire power of our cutting-edge game engine merged with the ease of use that we put together in [Unreal Editor for Fortnite]," Sweeney said. "That’s going to take multiple years. And when that process is complete, that will be Unreal Engine 6."
Sweeney further explained, "We announced that we’re working with Disney to build a Disney ecosystem that’s theirs, but it fully interoperates with the Fortnite ecosystem. And what we’re talking about with Unreal Engine 6 is the technological base that’s going to make that possible for everybody. Triple-A game developers to indie game developers to Fortnite creators achieving that same sort of thing."
However, Sweeney said that it hasn't initiated "those sorts of discussions" with Roblox and Minecraft owner Microsoft yet, "but we will, over time," he added. "The whole thesis here is that players are gravitating towards games which they can play together with all their friends, and players are spending more on digital items in games that they trust they’re going to play for a prolonged time," Sweeney said, detailing a revenue sharing model he hopes to Lobby.
"If you’re just dabbling in a game, why would you spend money to buy an item that you’re never going to use again? If we have an interoperable economy, then that will increase player trust that today’s spending on buying digital goods results in things that they’re going to own for a prolonged period of time, and it will work in all the places they go."
Epic EVP Saxs Persson said in congruence, "There’s no reason why we couldn’t have a federated way to flow between Roblox, Minecraft, and Fortnite. From our perspective, that would be amazing, because it keeps people together and lets the best ecosystem win."
"We’re trying to invent something. We’re just trying to broaden something that we already see today in Fortnite. That’s all we’re doing really is doubling down on the things that we know are successful today. That’s what Tim is saying," Persson said in an older interview with The Verge where the execs explained how this metaverse might practically work.
Persson added, "If you play with your friends, if you have more choice, you stay longer, play more, you enjoy your time more. The formula is pretty simple." As Sweeney explained, "in the game business, there are enough ecosystems and publishers with their own ecosystems that there isn’t any chance of one company just totally dominating them all, as has happened in smartphones."
