Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney Diagnoses Modern Game Market. „A Lot of Games Are Released With High Budgets, and They’re Not Selling”
Tim Sweeney believes the game industry is undergoing a „generational change.” Its manifestation is seen in the weak sales of major titles and the great condition of Fortnite.
Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney spoke at the Unreal Fest event in Seattle about the metaverse and Fortnite, which is said to represent the future of the gaming industry. This is due to the continuous development of the title and many failures of high-budget, high-profile productions.
First thing he did, Sweeney noticed that Fortnite broke the record for active players (per month). This happened during the last holiday season, when the counter indicated as many as 110 million players at the same time. This achievement was supposed to occur during the "generational change" in the gaming industry.
One of the manifestations [of this change] that we're seeing now is that a lot of games are released with big budgets and they don't sell as well as expected, while other games are incredibly strong. We see a real trend where players are moving towards really big titles, which they can play with a larger number of friends.
It's hard not to agree with the words of the CEO of Epic Games. Just look at the high-profile premieres of recent years, and you'll see that quite a few of them did not meet the developers' expectations. The latest example is Star Wars: Outlaws, but we can also mention Suicide Squad or Final Fantasy XVI. Sweeney believes the value of the game “increases in proportion to the number of friends you can connect with” to have fun together in the online world.
Some call it a metaverse and not everyone agrees on what that means. Some people, when they hear this word, think about what Facebook is doing with VR and AR. Some people are using the metaverse to describe everything they dislike about the current season of Fortnite.
Sweeney described Fortnite's current situation as something new that has "never happened on this scale before." However, he attributed a significant part of the success to "all the global brands participating and appearing: musicians reaching audiences, Disney, Star Wars and others." According to Sweeney, this is the future of gaming.
