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Parallel Metaverses of Today and Tomorrow
In light of Epic’s vision, the Meta concept is an underwhelming replica
Last week, as Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg shared his sweeping vision for a virtual world known as the metaverse, I watched a live talk which covered almost exactly the same topic from engineers including Heiko Wenczel of Epic Games during the Digital Media Licensing Conference. Facebook’s ideas about the metaverse left me underwhelmed, but Epic’s absolutely blew me away. Zuckerberg can sink his billions into creating virtual worlds if he wants. But make no mistake — the metaverse is already here. And Epic Games built it.
Outside the tech community, most people know Epic Games for its flagship video game Fortnite. Fortnite is the most popular video game in the history of the world. The game has 350 million players worldwide, who spent a collective 3.2 billion hours playing Fortnite in 2020. More than a quarter of pre-teens in the United States play the game, and top players can earn millions of dollars per year by competing in more than 100 official tournaments.
Inside the tech world, though, Epic is mostly known for its Unreal Engine. The Unreal Engine is a game engine originally developed in 1998. Game engines handle the complex physics underlying modern video games. They dictate how objects move within…
