Epic Games announced it is working towards metaverse development, something that got a boost from the $2 billion in investment that it received from Sony and KIRKBI, the owner of The Lego Group. As the Verdict reported, Sony and Lego will help Epic to expand to include those from a diverse age group while also offering different experiences as well to appeal to all.
The company has already been a pioneer in the segment and has organized film screenings and music events within Fortnite in the past. Needless to say, such experiences will come in handy in the metaverse that Epic had always advocated will open new means for advertisers as well as celebrities to engage with their audiences.
As it is, Epic Games is already known for its Fortnite game which has more than 350 million users the world over. The game, in turn, owes its success to the Unreal Engine which not only serves as the foundation of Fortnite but also serves to showcase the company’s abilities in the field of computer graphics, 3D visualization, augmented reality (AR), and virtual reality (VR).
Interestingly, these same qualities are what would be needed the most when it sets out to register a presence in the metaverse. The aim is to expand the Unreal Engine to incorporate more tools and features so that users have a diverse range of experiences on the platform to appeal to different age categories.
As Epic’s CEO Tim Sweeny said, they aim to “build one set of digital assets that can be deployed to film and television and in real-time games, scaling from high-end consoles down to low-end smartphones.” Sweeny further added, “The next three years are going to be critical for all of the metaverse-aspiring companies like Epic, Roblox, Microsoft, Facebook [now Meta]. It’s kind of a race to get to a billion users, whoever brings on a billion users first, would be the presumed leader in setting the standards.”
However, while it attempts to expand its offering to include a diverse age segment, a key challenge for Epic will be to make its content safe for children’s consumption. That way, it will have to evolve the right strategies and safeguards to ensure children are only viewing and experiencing things that are fit for them.
Another interesting feature of Epic’s metaverse is that it will have a cross-platform presence, something that can be attributed to the Sony PlayStation console. Further, a fallout of the Sony investment in Epic is that it will help the Japanese conglomerate to ward off competition from Microsoft that too has ambitious metaverse plans. Plus, Epic will also benefit from Sony’s huge library of games and movies as well the company’s global presence.
With a keen interest in tech, I make it a point to keep myself updated on the latest developments in the world of technology and gadgets. That includes smartphones or tablet devices but stretches to even AI and self-driven automobiles as well, the latter being my latest fad. Besides writing, I like watching videos, reading, listening to music, or experimenting with different recipes. Motion picture is another aspect that interests me a lot and maybe I’ll make a film sometime in the future.