As technology advances it will regularly effect our culture over time, a perfect example of this change can be seen in the recent surge in the popularity of esports. The rapid growth of esports results in a unique culture of gamers. The next generation is huge, with more and more kids understanding that they can compete professionally even if they are not the most athletic person.
In a 2017 article from FT I found the following:
“Perception is everything,” says Alex Lim, secretary-general of the International e-Sports Federation, and point man for an audacious bid to have the genre recognised as an Olympic event by 2024. “One generation grew up kicking a ball in the back yard, the next grew up with choices that included games. We live in a digital culture that most people accept is redefining a whole range of things: sport is one of them.”
In the tech world, the future is hard to gauge because behaviours change so fast. Consider the famous clip from 2007 of Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer laughing out loud at the notion of someone spending $500 on an iPhone. But this much seems certain: sports culture is changing in a profound way, and we have to imagine what the future could look like. Fortnite’s Marshmello concert is a glimps into that future: More than 11 million gamers were watching the 10min live gig. The show on February 2, 2019 was an absolute blast for players from all around the world, as they were able to drop into the Battle Royale island and witness a free concert. Players who joined in the virtual mosh-pit were offered Marshmello-themed skins and emotes, as well as a special “Marshy Smasher” pickaxe. Though it has not been the “first-ever live performance in a video game”, it illustrates what is around the corner.
After the social media footprint of the crossover has been assessed, it has been incredible successful for the anonymous DJ/producer. In a LinkedIn blog post, royalty analyst Jose Arroyo highlighted some of the more compelling figures resulting from Party in Pleasant Park. He writes that Marshmello’s YouTube channel amassed 699,000 new subscribers the day after the event, a roughly 1,800% increase over his January average daily subscription figure of 37,000. In addition, his YouTube views per day increased from 7.8 million to 42.8 million – or roughly 500%.
Fortnite’s most significant achievement may be the role it has come to play in the lives of millions. For these players, Fortnite has become a daily social square – a digital mall or virtual afterschool meetup that spans neighborhoods, cities, countries and continents. This role is powered by Fortnite’s free availability, robust voice chat, cross-platform functionality, and collaborative gameplay. Accordingly, examples abound of kids, adults and families simply hanging out or catching up on Fortnite while they play. Studies find that Fortnite’s players spend one to one and a half hours per day in the game, versus thirty minutes for active Snapchat or Instagram users. Fortnite wasn’t designed to be a Second Life-style experience, or even a digital “third place“; it became one organically. What’s more, it is drastically out-monetizing dedicated social squares such as Facebook, Snapchat and Instagram – even combined.
Redef has a great analysis. Here are the essentials:
For all of Fortnite’s success, Epic still defines itself as being in the game engine business. In August 2018, Epic announced plans to distribute Fortnite on Android devices outside the Google Play store (thereby avoiding its 30% commission). To this end, Epic announced the launch of its own direct-to-consumer digital store three months after its decision to circumvent the Google Play Store – one with a mere 12% royalty (or inclusive of Epic’s 5% Unreal licensing fee, if used). Notably, rumors persist that Sweeney had fought for even lower fees, but settled with his board at 12% – a sum he himself admits doesn’t always cover operating costs. Regardless, the Epic Games Store reflects a desire to use Fortnite’s 200MM+ accounts together with Epic’s balance sheet and game engine to become a new, ecosystem-centric platform…a goal consistent with an enduring obsession of Sweeney’s: the Metaverse.
The term “Metaverse” stems from Neal Stephenson’s 1992 novel Snow Crash, and describes a collective virtual shared space that’s created by the convergence of virtually enhanced physical reality and persistent virtual space. In its fullest form, the Metaverse experience would span most, if not all virtual words, be foundational to real-world AR experiences and interactions, and would serve as an equivalent “digital” reality where all “physical” humans would simultaneously co-exist. It is an evolution of the Internet. More commonly, the Metaverse is understood to resemble the world describe by Ernest Cline’s Ready Player One (brought to film by Steven Spielberg in 2018). To this end, a crucial difference between a vibrant game, including Fortnite, and the Metaverse is that the latter “should not simply be a means for the developer to suck money out of the users. It should be a bi-directional thing where users participate. Some pay, some sell, some buy, and there’s a real economy….in which everybody can be rewarded for participating in many different ways”, to further quote Sweeney (A semblance of this has existed for more than twenty years in so-called “Gold Farming”, where players, often employed by a larger company and typically in lower-income countries, would spend a work-day collecting digital resources for sale inside or outside of a game). To Sweeney, the Metaverse represents the “next version” of the Internet – a matter of when, not if. Furthermore, he believes the core technology will soon be available: “The big thing we are lacking now,” he said, “are the ‘deep inputs’ that come from inward- and outward-looking cameras that can capture our facial expressions as well as the environment around us… That technology has already been proven to work at a high-end commercial level costing tens of thousands of dollars. It’s probably as little as three years away.”
The impending possibility (and broader inevitability) of the Metaverse is separate from whether Epic can, should or will pursue it. But it’s clear that Sweeney wants to build an open Metaverse before someone else builds a closed one. Many are trying.
Sweeney speaks of the Metaverse in terms of its capabilities to connect humans in new ways. Mark Zuckerberg has often said the same, which was why he acquired Oculus: “Strategically we want to start building the next major computing platform that will come after mobile. There are not many things that are candidates to be the next major computing platform… [Oculus is a] long-term bet on the future of computing…. Immersive virtual and augmented reality will become a part of people’s everyday life.”
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