Tim Sweeney, CEO of Epic, says that the games industry is going through a "generational shift": 'Many games are released at high budgets and they don't sell'

Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney stated during his speech at today's Unreal Fest, in Seattle, that while there is still uncertainty as to what exactly the Metaverse is - and the failure of many high-profile games with big budgets to meet expectations - that it represents the future for gaming.

Sweeney stated that Fortnite had "new records" in concurrency during his opening remarks. The game reached an all-time high of 110 million users active over the previous holiday period. Sweeney noted that this achievement comes amid a "generational shift" in the gaming industry.

Sweeney explained that "one of the manifestations of that change" we're currently seeing is that many games are released at high budgets and they don't sell as well as expected." "Whereas, other games are doing incredibly well. What we're noticing is that players are gravitating towards the big games, where they can play more with their friends.

He continued that the perceived value of a video game "grows proportionally to the number of friends you can connect with," for everything from gaming together to chatting via voice, watching virtual concert, or "doing cool, virtual things on the internet."

Sweeney said that "some people will call it the Metaverse" and "we're not all in consensus on what this means." When some people hear the term'metaverse', they think about what Facebook is doing in VR and now AR. Some people use the term metaverse to describe what they don't like in the current Fortnite season."

Sweeney stated that the storyline and the ongoing live content updates are a huge part of this. Fortnite's evolving storyline and live content updates are a big part of this, but Sweeney attributed a lot of its success to "all of the world's leading brands participating and dropping into Fortnite: Musicians reaching out to users, Disney, Star Wars, and others coming together to create an ever-evolving, live entertainment experience." This is what we believe the future of gaming will be."

I'm one of those who raises an eyebrow when the subject of the metaverse is brought up, but I will not argue with Sweeney. Seven years after Fortnite's launch, the biggest entertainment brands are still lining-up to get in. Sweeney's comment about a slump in some big-budget stand-alone releases is also true. Suicide Squad, Final Fantasy 16 Starfield, and Star Wars Outlaws are all disappointing to some degree, despite the fact that they all carry Sweeney’s brand.