The wildly popular video game creators of Fortnite have raised $2 billion towards scaling up Epic Games’ plans to enter the metaverse. Tim Sweeney, the COO and founder of Epic Games stated that the funding “will help create spaces where players can have fun with friends, brands can build creative and immersive experiences, and creators can build a community and thrive”.
Epic Games, Sony, and LEGO are Teaming Up
In this tweet, The Epic Games Newsroom stated that a round of funding granted them $1 billion “to build the future of entertainment”. The two main investors are the pre-existing investor PlayStation console company, Sony Group Corporation, and the parent company of LEGO called KIRKBI.
The announcement follows a statement from the Epic Games website that “The LEGO Group and Epic Games {…} are entering a long-term partnership to shape the future of the metaverse to make it safe and fun for children and families. The two companies will team up to build an immersive, creatively inspiring, and engaging digital experience for kids of all ages to enjoy together.”
The combined expertises between physical toys and technology hope to develop new family-friendly experiences in the Metaverse.
Currently, there are no publicly announced plans for the company to make any NFTs or crypto, however, Epic Games is the developer of the popular Unreal Engine, which is one of the leading game engines for makers. The most recent version of Unreal Engine 5 is able to create games that feature NFT-based P2E games. It’s a strong indicator that the company is headed into NFT territory.
Previously Epic Games announced that they were “open” to selling video games that use blockchain technology and NFTs in its’ online store after another popular game retailer, Steam, banned the practice. Tim Sweeney tweeted, “Epic welcomes games that support NFTs to the Epic Games Store. For these games, the publisher conducts their own NFT transactions directly with customers. Epic isn’t a middleman in the transactions, and doesn’t collect store fees.”
The tweet at the time was met with mixed responses–though the general consensus appeared that the integration of NFTs into Fortnite is inevitable. Some even argue that Fortnite skins actually are NFTs. They aren’t as energy-intensive as the process of minting an NFT, but some Fortnite accounts with the original skins are sold for thousands of dollars.
It appears that NFTs, Web3, and the Metaverse are a natural transition for the collaboration of the three companies.
