LogInWe're witnessing a "generational change."
Epic Games
The Unreal Fest is a place for announcements and updates, and there, Epic Games' CEO Tim Sweeney shared his views on the future of the game industry.
He said we see a "generational change" now, with players' preferences switching to something new.
"One of the manifestations we're seeing right now is that a lot of games are released with high budgets, and they're not selling nearly as well as expected, whereas other games are going incredibly strong. What we're seeing is a real trend where players are gravitating toward the really big games where they can play with more of their friends."
This is what the future holds, Sweeney believes: evolving social experiences where you play games together with friends, talk in the voice chat, go to concerts, and do other stuff you usually do outside, but online this time.
"Some people will call it the metaverse," he said, "And we're not all in agreement on what this means. Some people, when they hear the word 'metaverse,' they think of what Facebook is doing with VR and now AR. Some people use the metaverse to describe everything they don't like about the current Fortnite season."
The change is new and "exciting," with "all the world's brands participating and dropping in: musicians reaching users, Disney and Star Wars and others all coming together to create a world-class entertainment experience that's ever-evolving and live. That's really what we think the future of gaming is about."
Apart from its vision, Epic also announced Launch Everywhere with Epic at Unreal Fest, a new program that reduces the royalties Unreal Engine developers pay to the company if they release their games on the Epic Games Store from day one.
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