Long before Mark Zuckerberg’s rebranded Facebook, this company has been musing about the notion of metaverse. Similar to how Amazon was associated with a bookstore in 1999, Epic Games is currently known as a gaming company because of the success of Fortnite. However, is it truly a gaming company? Let’s dive into the perspectives of one of the most promising players of the Metaverse and Web3 race.

All Set to Storm the Metaverse

While some just shake the air with the word “Metaverse”, others have been paving their way to it for years and are now far ahead. Epic Games is best known for creating the wildly popular game Fortnite, as well as the Unreal Engine, a real-time 3D creation tool. But this is only the tip of Epic’s iceberg.

How they make money:

- Games. Epic’s ultra-popular game Fortnite has over 350 million accounts and 2.5 billion friend connections. In 2021 Fortnite generated $5.8B in revenue through in-app purchases. It is estimated that Fortnite currently brings 85-90% of the company's total revenue.
- Unreal Engine. This toolbox lets people create interactive things that feel real, even though they're just on a screen. Originally invented to create characters and landscapes for games, Unreal Engine is widely used across industries. Have you seen the new Star Wars series, Mandalorian? West World, Love Death + Robots, Ford vs Ferrari, Harry Potter? Then you’ve seen Unreal Engine’s work. Porsche, Volvo and Rivian all use Unreal Engine to help increase safety and test automated functions. Zaha Hadid Architects incorporated this tech throughout its design process.

Unreal Engine has a reputation for being one of the most advanced and powerful game engines on the market. It generates revenue for Epic by licensing fees + 5% engine royalty after games/apps built on Unreal Engine hit $1M+ revenue.

- Epic Games Store. This product has challenged the dominance of Steam, the longstanding leader in digital game distribution. While the Epic Games Store has yet to reach the same level of popularity, it has already gained a dedicated following and has lured some big-name game developers with its more generous revenue sharing policies. It takes 12% platform royalty (vs Steam's 30%).

What this actually means:

Founded in 1991, Epic Games now has everything that others are just trying to build – a large community of players and developers, as well as its own technology for building a full-fledged virtual reality. According to Dizraptor app analysts, in recent years the company has made strategic moves that showcase their potential to become a major player in the era of new Internet. Which makes Epic Games a unique investment opportunity.

Fortnite – the Metaverse Role Model

Essentially, the metaverse is a shared virtual space, where people can interact with each other and virtual environments in new exciting ways. It's a place where people can shape their own realities, where creativity and imagination flourish while the boundaries between the physical and the digital are blurred. Does this remind you of something? What makes the unreal look like a reality? (Hint: Unreal Engine)

Metaverse has a potential to revolutionize the way we live, work and interact with each other. It's hard to imagine where exactly this will take us, but… look at Fortnite! This game already functions as a metaverse, turning into a space for socializing, digital concerts, fashion shows, and shopping for virtual objects. 

In 2020, Travis Scott held a nine-minute Astronomical Fortnite event and earned around $20 million on it, including merchandise sales. Over 12 million players logged on to the game during the event. In comparison, Scott's four-month-long Astroworld tour from 2018 to 2019 earned approximately $53.5 million, or just under $1 million per show. Many more artists join this trend. In 2021, Ariana Grande's spectacular show in Fortnite was enjoyed by millions of fans worldwide. Now imagine being able to experience Tommorrowland or any large live event with a front-row seat! That's only possible in the metaverse. 

According to a report by Activate Consulting based on data from approximately 3,000 American consumers, a significant majority (77%) of metaverse gamers have engaged in metaverse-like activities within video games over the last year: 

The companies focused on developing metaverse platforms are likely to find a receptive audience. The report suggests that the true value of the metaverse lies in its ability to offer unique experiences and connect people in novel ways. Newzoo reports that those who socialize in the game spend more time and money in it. Who else except Fortnite has managed to socialize millions of people in one world?

Unreal, Engine of New Internet Era 

Metaverse will transfer us from the era of liking and watching to the era of being a part of experience. Creating tools for building metaverse-like applications is a super complex task. The apps must be able to support a wide range of devices, users, languages and frameworks, and handle the complexity of modern graphics. It takes a huge amount of knowledge and work to develop your own real-time 3D creation technology from scratch. Instead, developers will need a universal tool in order to focus on interactive 3D content creation.

This is what Unreal Engine was built for. Millions of people already use it to create things. It is capable of powering any real-time 3D needs that a customer may have. It is the on-ramp for companies to bring their physical products into the digital world.

There are already a number of talented teams developing technologies for metaverse with the help of Unreal Engine. Some of them include: 

Promethean AI - the company develops artificial intelligence that builds virtual worlds. Promethean helps artists create fascinating spaces within minutes, without a need for coding.

Mlxar - the company is capable of designing virtual structures 50x faster than current state-of-the-art architecture design tools. A user can define with words how the metaverse should look like and Mlxar will produce it.

XLA Metaverse - a bustling, busy, active, and colorful metropolis brought to life using incredible Unreal Engine 5 visuals to create a true city of the future. mlxar showreel from mlxar on Vimeo.

A $8 trillion Industry to Embrace

“In terms of Metaverse, what does Epic Games have? An army of content providers, millions of teens who are already used to the Metaverse experience. A history of events in their shards with brands and celebrities. Accessible tools and learning. A marketplace. A vision.”

While no one can predict how Epic Games will develop within the next 10 years, it is highly likely it will search opportunities within metaverse space as it has already developed key successful products – Fortnite (a.k.a the most advanced metaverse-like game) and Unreal Engine (the most used tool for 3D graphics and content creation). 

They are already positioning themselves to take advantage of the Internet's evolution. Epic Games is gradually teaching the younger generation that a game is not just a game – it can be a universe of changing experiences. Sony and Lego share this idea: in April 2022 they invested $2B in Epic Games at a $32B valuation. The funds will support Epic’s growth in the metaverse, a field they have big plans for.

Big Wall Street banks have already expressed their vision. Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley both predicted that the revenue and monetization potential of the metaverse could be as much as $8 trillion. Haim Israel, a strategist at Bank of America, said that the metaverse is a massive opportunity where cryptocurrencies will be widely used. "I definitely believe this is a massive, massive opportunity," he stressed. Epic Games has been in the making for decades, and yet they have only scratched the surface of a much larger market.

While other companies like Meta, Apple, Microsoft and Google are trying to jump into the last car of the outgoing train to the metaverse, Epic Games has already booked the front row seats.

The current leading position of Epic Games can be summarized in simple terms:

• It has developed the best game technology in the world
• It provides a unique marketplace for game developers
• It gives the entertainment industry free tools and education to work with them
• And finally: Metaverse has been their long term mission for years

Just imagine how Epic Games will expand its revenue and valuation if it is able to catch a 10% of this $8 trillion opportunity - their revenues would reach $800B. If this happens, we will likely see one more company with a valuation of $1+ trillion. 

And in the meantime, you have an opportunity to participate in Epic Games growth by investing via Dizraptor. Right now Dizraptor is offering an exposure to Epic Games, at the price of its latest round. The investment is available to accredited investors from $1000.

Don't miss your chance to be at the forefront of gaming, metaverse and web3 at a single stroke!