Given Fortnite's recent slew of collaborations, it should not be surprising to learn that Tim Sweeney, the CEO of Epic Games, is betting on interconnected game universes and cosmetics economies. In a recent interview with IGN, Sweeney commented on the current state of the gaming industry, stating that "the only way that we can hope for new games coming into the market to be able to succeed when there's so much Metcalfe's Law at play and so many captive audiences in the really big games...it's got to be that those games get momentum by connecting to the economies in other games." What the executive is effectively suggesting is that gamers should be introduced to new games via in-game cosmetics or other items that can be used in other games.
It's also no surprise to hear the CEO espousing the idea that interconnected game economies and transferrable in-game items are the future, since expanded support for smart assets and interoperability between games is one of the headline features of the upcoming Unreal Engine 6. Sweeney goes on to talk about the benefits of social ecosystems and multiplatform games for their developers, stating that "I think every platform would have a lot more engagement, and every game acting through the system would have a lot more engagement if we connected things, literally. Not just Epic, but name all of the top game developers, I think Xbox, Epic, Roblox, Riot, Tencent, EA, all the different studios within Microsoft - we'd all be better off if we connected our stuff." Ironically, his commentary comes at a time when both Xbox and PlayStation are returning to more closed-off ecosystems, with a return to the console exclusive era in full swing.