Chapter 4: Who else can build the metaverse?
Posted: Sun Feb 09, 2025 9:56 am
Unlike today’s market leaders, Epic doesn’t charge for it. It’s also free for any engine, any platform, and any game. It operates at the scale of Fortnite’s player network, allowing any game to tap into the world’s largest community of players to kick-start their user base. Such a product is obviously valuable, but to Epic it's "even more valuable if it's free" because it expands the company's already massive social graph, making it easier for more games to "talk" to each other and for players to jump from one another more seamlessly. All of this also reduces Epic's reliance on Fortnite as it builds out the Metaverse. While Epic Online Services is still in closed beta, the company says it will be publicly available in the second quarter of 2020 and should support "hundreds of games in 2020." Note, too, that all of this reduces Epic's reliance on Fortnite in its long-term efforts to build out the Metaverse.
Epic also operates one of the largest albeit still small digital game stores - meaning players already access a wide variety of digital content and experiences through Epic. Few consumers are demanding more netherlands mobile database decentralized digital content, and most are quite happy with market leader Steam. However, Epic Games founderCEO Tim Sweeney has been vocal about the fact that today’s standard 30% commission on digital content sales e. iOS or Amazon or Google Play is not only usurious, but also an impediment to the creation of a true digital world economy. Imagine, for example, if credit card fees were not 0.5-2.5%, but were as high as 60-20 times; entire sectors of the physical economy would not be able to function e. coffee shops or grocery stores. To this end, Epic charges only 12% which also includes the 5% Unreal licensing fee, and only 7% for many customers. It is worth noting that Sweeney was rumored to have argued for a lower fee, but reached an agreement with the board on 12% - an amount he himself admitted does not always include operating costs. That doesn’t mean there isn’t an overall business here — operating a storefront will undoubtedly help build the metaverse — but Sweeney’s efforts appear far more expansive. He’s publicly implored Google and Apple, companies that make thousands of times more than Epic’s fledgling store, to match Epic’s prices.
Epic also operates one of the largest albeit still small digital game stores - meaning players already access a wide variety of digital content and experiences through Epic. Few consumers are demanding more netherlands mobile database decentralized digital content, and most are quite happy with market leader Steam. However, Epic Games founderCEO Tim Sweeney has been vocal about the fact that today’s standard 30% commission on digital content sales e. iOS or Amazon or Google Play is not only usurious, but also an impediment to the creation of a true digital world economy. Imagine, for example, if credit card fees were not 0.5-2.5%, but were as high as 60-20 times; entire sectors of the physical economy would not be able to function e. coffee shops or grocery stores. To this end, Epic charges only 12% which also includes the 5% Unreal licensing fee, and only 7% for many customers. It is worth noting that Sweeney was rumored to have argued for a lower fee, but reached an agreement with the board on 12% - an amount he himself admitted does not always include operating costs. That doesn’t mean there isn’t an overall business here — operating a storefront will undoubtedly help build the metaverse — but Sweeney’s efforts appear far more expansive. He’s publicly implored Google and Apple, companies that make thousands of times more than Epic’s fledgling store, to match Epic’s prices.