There’s big news in the gaming industry with Sony and LEGO dishing out some serious cash to Fortnite’s creators, Epic Games.
Sony forked out an extra budget of $1 billion in funding for the group that also made Unreal Engine and Gears of War.
And that’s not the end of the news because Kirkbi, the company that owns LEGO, has thrown an extra $1 billion in the mix.
Gamers will be happy to hear that despite the enormous financial effort, both Sony and LEGO will stay out of the spotlight.
Epic will continue to be run and managed by the CEO and founder Tim Sweeney.
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Epic was founded in 1991 in Maryland by Tim Sweeney, a computer programmer who simply wanted to make cool videogames and we can safely say it worked out well for him.
After the success of Unreal Engine, Epic had a major global breakthrough with Fortnite.
Fortnite drew in more than 125 million players in less than a year.
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Kenichiro Yoshida, CEO of Sony, is unsurprisingly very happy with this investment.
He said it will “deepen [the company’s] relationship in the metaverse field, a space where creators and users share their time”.
“We are also confident that Epic’s expertise, including their powerful game engine, combined with Sony’s technologies, will accelerate our various efforts such as the development of new digital fan experiences in sports and our virtual production initiatives,” said Yoshida.
And what about LEGO? The company wants to expand its presence in the Metaverse and that’s exactly what this $1 billion investment is supposed to help them do.
Søren Thorup Sørensen, CEO of LEGO, said this investment “will accelerate [the company’s] engagement in the world of digital play […] with a long-term focus toward the future metaverse.”
