Epic Games – Rocket powered

Epic fuels its ecosystem ambitions

• Psyonix adds weight to Fornite’s already mighty presence in the world of digital gaming meaning that Microsoft, Sony, Valve and Google should take notice.
• Epic Games is acquiring Psyonix which is both a long-term partner as well as the creator of Rocket League, a very popular e-sports game with 50m players.
• Psyonix does two things for Epic
  • First, Ecosystem: The idea behind Rocket League is similar to Fortnite in that humans play against each other.
  • Rocket League is a football (soccer) inspired game where players compete with cars rather than football teams.
  • Given the multiplayer focus, there is no reason why the Fortnite player base and the Rocket League player base cannot be brought together over time.
  • This will serve to enhance the appeal of Epic Games’ community which enables cross platform play over having an account with Xbox Live, PlayStation, Steam or anyone else.
  • At the end of the day this must be the end game because if Epic becomes the preferred place to spend one’s digital gaming time, it will have created a highly monetise-able asset.
  • Furthermore, the more cross-play becomes the norm, the less relevant the hardware platform becomes.
  • Second, scale: Rocket League is very popular on its own with 50m players and adding these into Fortnite’s 250m will give the scale of the ecosystem a boost.
  • I suspect that there is a lot of cross-over between the two, but at the very least, players are going to be spending more time on Epic’s digital property.
  • Psyonix has also worked with Epic on a number of its other games meaning that Epic is also migrating its development process to become more vertical.
• Epic is currently on a mission to break the stranglehold that Microsoft, Sony and Valve have over multiplayer gaming as well as Google’s stranglehold over app distribution on Android.
• Adding Rocket League to those efforts will increase the appeal of the Epic Store for gamers which should in turn bring in more developers as the terms for them are currently still much better than elsewhere.
• Epic is still just a games company but there are signs that other Digital Life Services might creep into its offering once it has hit a critical level of scale.
• An example of this could be media consumption where Fortnite has already hosted the best attended music concert in history.
• Epic Games is becoming a force to be reckoned with and Fortnite has entered RFM’s coverage of ecosystems replacing Microsoft which no longer seems to care that much about the consumer.
• Microsoft, Sony, Valve and Google should be concerned.