The Future of Epic Games

Epic Games single handedly built the metaverse, and they’re just getting started.

Besides Fortnite, Epic Games is most well known for being the creators of the Unreal Engine game engine. UE4 (and now officially released UE5) powers a lot of AAA games as well as VFX content (notably used at ILM for shows like The Mandalorian). It’s the vertical integration of the game engine and the in-house IP development like Fortnite that has given Epic Games such a dominate position in the metaverse space. 

Brick by brick Epic Games has executed their vision of the metaverse better than Meta has, and its only going to get better with their new partnership with… LEGO.

Official announcement is here.

Imagine Roblox or Minecraft except it's the LEGO universe. This could include Star Wars, Marvel, Harry Potter, and plenty more IP that has licensing deals with Lego themed video games. Till now (including the recently released LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga) LEGO video games have NOT been developed with Unreal Engine and were made by WB Games. But the future is clear and the metaverse implications are incredibly exciting.

Maybe Epic Games & Lego will make VR titles for Meta’s Oculus platform, but it's clear Epic Games has the power and they’re making all the right moves.

Interestingly LEGO wasn’t the only partnership announced last week. Epic Games also announced a strategic partnership with Sesame Street… but that’s way less interesting (maybe Lego Bert & Ernie?).

Epic Games Raises More $

The LEGO partnership was announced on April 7th. Just yesterday April 11 Epic Games disclosed they raised $2B from Sony & KIRKBI (the company that owns The LEGO Group). This further solidifies the strategic vision these two companies are trying to build.

The official announcement is here.

The most post-money valuation was disclosed at $31.5B. In comparison, Unity Technologies (ticker = U) makers of the Unity game engine is publicly traded and valued at $27.3B. Electronic Arts (ticker = EA) has a valuation of $34.8B.

Job Board

Looking for a job in Gaming? Each week I spend a few hours looking through open roles at different studios and list anything interesting I see for readers.

This week’s theme is Epic Games. They currently have 465 open roles on their website. Here are a few interesting ones.

Product?

• Sr Product Manager

Creative?

• Concept Artist for Fortnite

• Lead Technical Animator

• Art Director

Technical?

• Apple Platform Programmer

• Gameplay Programmer

• Lead Physics Programmer

Business & Marketing?

• Technical Account Manager

• Paid Media Manager

• Brand Partnership Manager

Featured Game

This week’s featured game is LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga

Initial release date: April 5, 2022

Rating: IGN gave it an 8/10

This is the 6th LEGO Star Wars title to be released. The first of which launched in 2005. I've always been surprised at how fun these games are.

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