Walt Disney Co. announced the acquisition of a $1.5 billion equity stake in Epic Games, intended to create what the company describes as a “persistent universe”. This project, which is subject to regulatory approval, promises to be a revolutionary gaming experience that will integrate with Epic’s popular game, Fortnite.

According to a statement issued on February 7, Disney plans to develop a “universe of games and entertainment” that will allow users to interact with Disney’s iconic content, characters and stories. Epic Games founder and CEO Tim Sweeney expressed his enthusiasm for the partnership, highlighting the building of a persistent and open ecosystem. For his part, Bob Iger, CEO of Disney, described this initiative as the company’s biggest step in the world of games.

The project, backed by Epic’s powerful Unreal Engine, aims to give gamers the ability to create their own stories and experiences within the digital universe. However, details on the launch date of this ambitious metaverse project have not been revealed.

Disney’s strategic move comes less than a year after closing its metaverse division in an attempt to cut operating costs, demonstrating a significant shift in its focus toward gaming and digital entertainment.

Tim Sweeney maintained an optimistic stance on the potential of metaverse, challenging claims about its decline and citing the large number of monthly active users on various metaverses.

This partnership between Disney and Epic Games also coincides with Disney’s fiscal first quarter 2024 report, in which the company surpassed Wall Street revenue estimates, generating $23.6 billion in revenue. Despite this success, revenue growth remained stable compared to the same period of the previous year.

In addition, Disney announced a 50 % increase in the dividend per share and experienced a 7 % increase in the price of its shares in off-hours operations.

This strategic partnership between two entertainment giants promises to redefine the gaming and digital entertainment landscape, offering users an immersive and exciting experience within an ever-changing digital universe.

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Source: Walt Disney Company

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Danish iconic toy and collectible figures company, Lego Group, is ready for its official entry into the metaverse. According to a report published by the Financial Times and disseminated by other means, Lego will join forces with Epic Games, the video game producer behind Fortnite, to develop a virtual world that allows them to reach new markets.

Lego CEO Niels Christiansen stated that the idea is to create a space for the brand in the metaverse so that it is also recognized in these new spaces.

The collaboration between Lego and Epic Games is not new, as both companies funded the creators of Fortnite in 2021 to create a safe and secure platform for children.

Lego has been hiring staff to develop software and digital experiences. With their extensive experience and recognition in popular culture, video games, movies, and figure making, they may be able to create a more immersive and engaging experience for the metaverse.

Although the metaverse is very attractive, it still does not show a level of development that is attractive to potential users. This initiative could refresh the idea of the metaverse and make it more attractive to everyone.

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Source: Diariobitcoin

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The CEO of Epic Games, Tim Sweeney, spoke about the return of the Fortnite video game to the iOS operating system, after Apple withdrew it from its app store almost two and a half years ago.

Apple and Google withdrew the Fortnite video game from both application stores in August 2020, after Epic introduced an in-game payment system, the same one that the video game already used in its computer version, directly through its own platform Epic Games Store.

This movement sought to avoid paying the commission that both Apple and Google charge developers when applications include transactions. However, it was also a breach of the contract that Epic had entered into with both companies to host the popular game on their platforms.

Although Fortnite was also removed from the Play Store, it is still present for Android devices, since users can find it in the Galaxy Store for Samsung mobile devices or download it directly from the Epic website.

And although it can be played on iPhone and iPad through the NVDIA GeForce NOW service, Fornite has not been present in Apple’s system since it was removed from the App Store, a fact that will change this 2023 as Sweeney himself has anticipated on Twitter.

“Next year on iOS”, he announced on December 31. A few hours later, already on January 1st, he shared an image of the game with a character pointing his gun at number 2023.

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Source: Hipertextual

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Tim Sweeney, founder and CEO of Epic Games recently assured that the company intends to integrate non-fungible tokens (NFT) in some way.

This comes after Minecraft stated that it has no intention of integrating either blockchain or NFT, to which Sweeney responded with a “definitely not”.

The creators of Minecraft, Mojang Studios, have banned token integrations, considering the speculative aspect of NFTs along with scarcity and risks of foreclosure and scam.

“Developers should be free to decide how to build their games, and you are free to decide if you want to play them. I believe that the stores and manufacturers of operating systems should not interfere by imposing their views on others. We, of course, will not do it,” said the CEO of Epic Games.

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Source: Cointelegraph

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Epic Games and LEGO announced a long-term collaboration to develop an immersive digital experience for children of all ages and families, a metaverse that is safe for play and contentcreation.

With this space, both companies seek to provide children with access to tools that can help them become content creators, as well as other gaming opportunities.

“We believe there is great potential for them to develop lifelong skills such as creativity, collaboration and communication,” The LEGO Group CEO Niels B Christiansen said in a statement.

One of the objectives that both companies have set in the development of this immersive experience is to offer a “safe, inspiring and beneficial” digital environment, in the words of this manager.

For his part, the CEO and founder of Epic Games, Tim Sweeney, stressed that he intends to build “a space in the metaverse that is fun, entertaining and made for children and families.”

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Source: Hipertextual

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The video game Fornite will not return to Apple’s application platform ecosystem, until the trial it holds with its developer, Epic Games, including the appeals process, is definitively concluded.

This was stated by the company in an email sent to Epic Games in response to the latter’s request to restore Fortnite in the App Store.

Epic Games and Apple maintain a legal dispute after the implementation of an alternative payment system to Apple in Fortnite, from which it did not obtain commissions, which led to its withdrawal from the App Store of its version for iOS and the monopoly complaint of the studio against American technology.

The initial verdict of the California district court that has tried the case since May determined that Apple does not maintain a monopoly on digital transactions in mobile video games and that Epic had to compensate with 30 % of its income for payments since August 2020 for breaching its contract. Epic announced its intention to appeal the ruling.

However, at the same time, it recognizes an anticompetitive behavior in the applications in general of the App Store, and ordered that it be allowed to include in the applications “metadata, external links or other calls to action that direct customers to purchase mechanisms.”

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Source: VidaExtra

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Google considered buying all or part of the Fortnite video game developer, Epic Games, for competing with its official Google Play application platform.

This is clear from court documents that were released now as part of an investigation in the Northern District Court of California (United States) against Google for alleged monopoly practices on its application platform, denounced by Epic Games.

To support its monopoly accusations, the video game developer said in the document that Google had come to “share the benefits of its monopoly with partners to secure agreements to limit competition.“

Epic Games denounced that some of these technology practices were directed against the US studio. “Google has developed a number of internal projects to address the ‘contagion’ it perceives from efforts by Epic and others to offer consumers and developers competitive alternatives.”

Ultimately, the creator of Fortnite goes so far as to claim that the tech giant “considered buying part or all of Epic to remedy the threat” to his position.

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Source: Xataka

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This week takes place the trial that faces Apple and the creator of Fortnite, Epic Games, who denounces that the former exercises monopoly practices on its official application platform, the App Store. Both companies have presented their arguments for and against the allegations.

This legal battle began after the introduction of Epic Games of an alternative payment system to the App Store, in which Apple did not obtain commissions. This caused Apple to delete all its apps from its platform, including the Fortnite video game for iOS.

Apple, which will be represented at this week’s trial by senior officials including its CEO Tim Cook, its chief marketing officer, Phil Schiller, and its senior vice president of software engineering, Craig Federighi, argues that iOS developers have a “tremendous access” to Apple’s intellectual property, as the previously submitted document argues.

This access is especially focused on Apple’s tools for application developers, or APIs, among which are StoreKit, ResearchKit, GameplayKit, SpriteteKit, CareKit, ARKit, HomeKit, CoreML and the Swift programming language, among others.

The arguments

The company also defended that its practices in the App Store protect the safety of users, that only 1.72 % of existing ‘malware’ affects iOS, and that its design blocks third-party payments for the same reason.

As for Fortnite, the American company assures that the ‘freemium’ model (free with payments for internal content) of the store has allowed the success of the Epic Games video game, and that the study tried to lower the commissions of the App Store but did not from the Microsoft Store for PC and Xbox.

Apple maintains that Epic Games cannot prove any conduct against market competition, given that developer revenue grew to nearly $ 3 billion in 2019 and platform commissions have dropped, to the 15 % in apps in their first million dollars of collection, and then it goes to 30 %.

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Source: BBC

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Epic Games, developer of the popular video game Fortnite, filed a lawsuit against Apple before the European Commission for abuse of a dominant position through the use of “anti-competitive restrictions” in the iPhone ecosystem, as reported by the company in a statement.

Epic claims that Apple, through “a series of well-designed anti-competitive restrictions”, has not only damaged but has “completely eliminated” competition in the application distribution and payment processing segments in the iOS ecosystem, the operating system that Apple uses on its mobile devices.

“Apple uses its control over the iOS ecosystem to benefit itself while blocking other competitors and its conduct is an abuse of dominant position and a breach of the competition law of the European Union”, highlighted part of the statement of the company

The lawsuit before Brussels joins the litigation that Epic Games has initiated in the United States, United Kingdom and Australia.

Conflict between tech giants

“What is at stake is the future of mobile platforms. Consumers have the right to install applications from sources of their choice and developers have the right to compete in a fair market“, said the founder and CEO of Epic Games, Tim Sweeney.

The conflict between Epic Games and Apple began several months ago, when the creator of Fortnite enabled in the iOS version of the game a payment platform other than Apple itself, which allowed it to skip the 30 % commission that Apple imposes on the transactions. Given this, which is not allowed by Apple’s application store policies, the Cupertino company blocked Fortnite updates.

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Source: Xataka

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