Just
over
a
year
ago,
Epic
Games
laid
off
around
16
percent
of
its
employees.
The
problem,
Epic
said,
was
its
own
big
ideas
for
the
future
and
just
how
expensive
they
were
to
build.
“For
a
while
now,
we’ve
been
spending
way
more
money
than
we
earn,”
Epic
CEO
Tim
Sweeney
wrote
in
an
email
to
staff.
On
Tuesday,
onstage
at
the
Unreal
Fest
conference
in
Seattle,
Sweeney
declared
that
the
company
is
now
“financially
sound.”
The
announcement
kicked
off
a
packed
two-hour
keynote
with
updates
on
Unreal
Engine,
the
Unreal
Editor
for
Fortnite,
the
Epic
Games
Store,
and
more.
In
an
interview
with
The
Verge,
Sweeney
says
that
reining
in
Epic’s
spending
was
part
of
what
brought
the
company
to
this
point.
“Last
year,
before
Unreal
Fest,
we
were
spending
about
a
billion
dollars
a
year
more
than
we
were
making,”
Sweeney
says.
“Now,
we’re
spending
a
bit
more
than
we’re
making.”
“The
real
power
will
come
when
we
bring
these
two
worlds
together”
Sweeney
says
the
company
is
well
set
up
for
the
future,
too,
and
that
it
has
the
ability
to
make
the
types
of
long-term
bets
he
spent
the
conference
describing.
“We
have
a
very,
very
long
runway
comparing
our
savings
in
the
bank
to
our
expenditure,”
Sweeney
says.
“We
have
a
very
robust
amount
of
funding
relative
to
pretty
much
any
company
in
the
industry
and
are
making
forward
investments
really
judiciously
that
we
could
throttle
up
or
down
as
our
fortunes
change.
We
feel
we’re
in
a
perfect
position
to
execute
for
the
rest
of
this
decade
and
achieve
all
of
our
plans
at
our
size.”
Epic
has
ambitious
plans.
Right
now,
Epic
offers
both
Unreal
Engine,
its
high-end
game
development
tools,
and
Unreal
Editor
for
Fortnite,
which
is
designed
to
be
simpler
to
use.
What
it’s
building
toward
is
a
new
version
of
Unreal
Engine
that
can
tie
them
together.
“The
real
power
will
come
when
we
bring
these
two
worlds
together
so
we
have
the
entire
power
of
our
high-end
game
engine
merged
with
the
ease
of
use
that
we
put
together
in
[Unreal
Editor
for
Fortnite],”
Sweeney
says.
“That’s
going
to
take
several
years.
And
when
that
process
is
complete,
that
will
be
Unreal
Engine
6.”
Unreal
Engine
6
is
meant
to
let
developers
“build
an
app
once
and
then
deploy
it
as
a
standalone
game
for
any
platform,”
Sweeney
says.
Developers
will
be
able
to
deploy
the
work
that
they
do
into
Fortnite
or
other
games
that
“choose
to
use
this
technology
base,”
which
would
allow
for
interoperable
content.
The
upcoming
“persistent
universe”
Epic
is
building
with
Disney
is
an
example
of
the
vision.
“We
announced
that
we’re
working
with
Disney
to
build
a
Disney
ecosystem
that’s
theirs,
but
it
fully
interoperates
with
the
Fortnite
ecosystem,”
Sweeney
says.
“And
what
we’re
talking
about
with
Unreal
Engine
6
is
the
technology
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.”
If
you
read
my
colleague
Andrew
Webster’s
interview
with
Sweeney
from
March
2023,
the
idea
of
interoperability
to
make
the
metaverse
work
will
seem
familiar.
At
Unreal
Fest
this
week,
I
got
a
better
picture
of
how
the
mechanics
of
that
might
work
with
things
like
Unreal
Engine
6
and
the
company’s
soon-to-open
Fab
marketplace
to
shop
for
digital
assets.
Fab
will
be
able
to
host
assets
that
can
work
in
Minecraft
or
Roblox,
Sweeney
says.
But
the
bigger
goal
is
to
let
Fab
creators
offer
“one
logical
asset
that
has
different
file
formats
that
work
in
different
contexts.”
He
gave
an
example
of
how
a
user
might
buy
a
forest
mesh
set
that
has
different
content
optimized
for
Unreal
Engine,
Unity,
Roblox,
and
Minecraft.
“Having
seamless
movement
of
content
from
place
to
place
is
going
to
be
one
of
the
critical
things
that
makes
the
metaverse
work
without
duplication.”
But
for
an
interoperable
metaverse
to
really
be
possible,
companies
like
Epic,
Roblox,
and
Microsoft
will
need
to
find
ways
for
players
to
move
between
those
worlds
instead
of
keeping
them
siloed
— and
for
the
most
part,
that
isn’t
on
the
horizon.
Sweeney
says
Epic
hasn’t
had
“those
sorts
of
discussions”
with
anyone
but
Disney
yet.
“But
we
will,
over
time,”
he
says.
He
described
an
ideal
where
companies,
working
as
peers,
would
use
revenue
sharing
as
a
way
to
create
incentives
for
item
shops
that
people
want
to
buy
digital
goods
from
and
“sources
of
engagement”
(like
Fortnite
experiences)
that
people
want
to
spend
time
in.
“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
long
time,”
Sweeney
says.
“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
long
period
of
time,
and
it
will
work
in
all
the
places
they
go.”
“People
are
not
dogmatic
about
where
they
play”
“There’s
no
reason
why
we
couldn’t
have
a
federated
way
to
flow
between
Roblox,
Minecraft,
and
Fortnite,”
Epic
EVP
Saxs
Persson
says.
“From
our
perspective,
that
would
be
amazing,
because
it
keeps
people
together
and
lets
the
best
ecosystem
win.”
Epic
sees
in
its
surveys
that
“people
are
not
dogmatic
about
where
they
play,”
Persson
says.
Of
course,
there’s
plenty
of
opportunity
for
Epic,
which
already
makes
a
widely
played
game
and
a
widely
used
game
engine
and
is
building
Fortnite
into
a
game-making
tool.
(And
I
haven’t
even
mentioned
how
Unreal
Engine
is
increasingly
used
in
filmmaking
and
other
industries.)
The
end
state
sounds
great
for
Epic,
but
Epic
also
has
to
make
the
math
make
sense
for
everyone
else.
And
it
has
to
do
that
without
much
of
a
presence
on
mobile.
The
company
has
spent
years
in
legal
battles
with
Apple
and
Google
over
their
mobile
app
store
practices,
and
it
just
sued
Samsung,
too.
The
Epic
Games
Store
recently
launched
on
Android
globally
and
on
iOS
in
the
EU,
but
thanks
to
restrictions
on
third-party
app
stores,
the
company’s
game
store
boss,
Steve
Allison,
tells
The
Verge
that
reaching
its
end-of-year
install
goal
is
“likely
impossible.”
Any
major
change
could
take
quite
a
while,
according
to
Sweeney.
“It
will
be
a
long
battle,
and
it
will
likely
result
in
a
long
series
of
battles,
each
of
which
moves
a
set
of
freedoms
forward,
rather
than
having
a
single
worldwide
moment
of
victory,”
Sweeney
says.
There’s
one
other
battle
Epic
is
fighting:
Fortnite
is
still
hugely
popular,
but
there
is
waning
interest
—
or
hype,
at
least
—
in
the
metaverse.
Sweeney
and
Persson,
however,
don’t
exactly
agree
about
the
term
seemingly
falling
out
of
popularity.
“It’s
like
there’s
metaverse
weather,”
Sweeney
says.
“Some
days
it’s
good,
some
days
it’s
bad.
Depends
on
who’s
doing
the
talking
about
it.”
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