Sony has thrown another two hundred million dollars at the creators of the Unreal Engine, and it was part of another round of getting investment funds for Epic Games. This money can be used to make up for the losses the Epic Games Store has on giving away free games each week.

This is the second time Sony invested in Epic Games, as last July, the company gave 250 million bucks to the Tim Sweeney-led group. Epic Games is now worth 28.7 billion dollars, which might sound a lot, but it’s almost nothing compared to what Apple is worth (if we add together the value of each of their stocks, we’d be above two TRILLION dollars). So 1/5 of the investment fund came from Sony, and, according to Sweeney, the money will be used „building connected social experiences in Fortnite, Rocket League and Fall Guys, while empowering game developers and creators with Unreal Engine, Epic Online Services and the Epic Games Store.” In other words, it’s going towards the plans about a metaverse.

A metaverse thought is hinting at what Epic wants to create: essentially a much more advanced MMO that seems to slowly come together in Fortnite, as players come together to watch concerts or participate in unique events… and the company wants to pull it off with its unique economic system, which is what bothered Apple and Google.

In his 2020 DICE Summit keynote, Sweeney explained what a metaverse means: „A move away from a whole bunch of walled gardens into something that’s increasingly open and comes to resemble, by the end of this decade, an open metaverse, in which players get together with their friends and they go from game experience to game experience, staying together as a group as friends, going across all platforms and not having to worry about what company made the device they’re on, or what company’s operating the servers they’re playing on as they go through these experiences.” He is afraid that this decade could also be lost due to platform holders (Microsoft, Apple) continuing war against each other.

The idea itself isn’t bad, and this might be the reason why Sony is funding Epic Games. (And we’re pretty sure they want first dibs on the Unreal Engine 5…)

Source: PCGamer