I've been keeping an eye on 'metaverse news' - lots of which I tend to dismiss as being a simple misuse of the buzzword¹, but something last week caught my eye - an announcement of a partnership between Epic Games and Lego to 'build a place for kids to play in the metaverse'.

A common theme of metaverse announcements involves either some sort of branded VR space or some sort of branded NFT- usually looking like they are more interested in giving people something to talk about than creating something of value.

The Lego announcement was a bit different - because all they seemed to be announcing was a partnership and a set of principles. Its more the fact that it was Lego and Epic Games making the announcement that I thought was interesting, for a few reasons.

Lego are obviously a massive brand - but they are at an interesting point in time right now; the product is largely the physical bricks, and I think their patents have expired. So, in a potential not-too-distant-future world where you could design and 3D print your own Lego bricks (or buy them secondhand, or from a 3rd party manufacturer), the role of the Lego brand is... interesting.
Although Lego have done some interesting things with things like robots you can control with an iPad (the building instructions are also provided as an iPad app, rather than a paper booklet) and toys that use your phone/tablet camera, they still ultimately rely on the bricks in the box. I get why they want to be a 'physical' experience- and as a parent, I support it. But will it still make sense in 5 years? 10? (Will my kids eventually want to pass my Lego down to their kids to play with - or just to show them what things were like when they were little?)
Meanwhile, my own kids do (or have) love(d) Lego (not least thanks to a combination of cool sets I've bought/acquired as an adult, a big box of bricks that I had as a child and lots of encouragement from me for them to play with them...), I think they would much rather sit with an iPad or laptop and 'build stuff' with Roblox or Minecraft. (To be honest, I'm much more likely to be found in the virtual world of Minecraft than with plastic bricks in my hands too...)
Epic Games are probably best known for making Fortnite - one of the gaming brands that gets closely linked with 'metaverse' conversations (the other two being Minecraft and Roblox), but they are also the developers of Unreal Engine, which is a 3D engine that is used to build things from Fortnite and other 'high end' video games, to mobile 3D games, to the live 3D photorealistic studio backdrops that replaced greenscreens for The Mandalorian. (I think there are two really notable, licensed 3D engines- Unreal is one, Unity is the other. If you want to learn how to build 3D apps/environments for Oculus, then those are the two tools that Oculus' developer documentation will point you towards.) I think its fair to describe Unreal Engine as one of the most likely tools to be linked to 'building the metaverse'.
Meanwhile this month, a new Lego Star Wars game came out - accompanied by some controversy. The Lego video games have been developed by TT Games for years - this latest one has been in development for 5 years, along with a brand new version of TT Games' own 'TT Engine' - the controversy has been around the 'crunch' pressure that developers were forced to work in to meet their deadline.

So, reading between the lines, it seemed to me that there was more to this announcement than meets the eye. Lego's game developer partner were creating stories that Lego surely don't want their brand to be associated with, Epic Games' Unreal Engine seems like a sensible alternative to turn to, and having the Lego brand on board with Epic's metaverse strategy seems like a win for them.

But there's more... this week (April 11th), Epic announced a $2bn funding round with KIRKBI (the Lego group's owners) and Sony - investing $1 billion each - which seems to suggest something bigger than a simple set of principles.

Where do Sony fit in this? Well, going back to the "metaverse trinity" of Fortnite, Roblox and Minecraft - Fortnite seems to be moving away from its origins as a 'building game'², but Minecraft is still very much in the 'creative playground' kind of space. And also happens to be owned by Microsoft - who own Xbox. So- the idea of some sort of combination of Lego's brand, Epic Games' Unreal Engine and Sony's PlayStation hardware seems... interesting. (I'm not sure what sort of 'metaverse experience' could be tied to a particular proprietary piece of gaming hardware- but its also worth noting that Sony have been taking their time with a PS5 version of their VR headset...)

So I can't help think that this is as much about Lego moving away from TT Games as their game licencing partner as it is about moving towards the metaverse... But while 'building' games like Minecraft, Roblox and (to a lesser extent) Fortnite keep getting mentioned in metaverse stories, I can see why Lego want their building blocks to be part of the metaverse conversation too. And a $1bn investment in a company that I'd be expecting to be paying Lego for the use of their brand seems like a more interesting partnership than the usual licensor/licencee relationship.

My bet is that this will be a more interesting metaverse story to watch than 95% of the '[BRAND] launches immersive metaverse experience' press releases I've seen so far...

Obviously, I'm not an arbiter of what the 'true' definition of the metaverse is - but if its about something that a) already happened, b) only happened in VR and c) happened on a centralised platform - I don't think 'metaverse' is a fair descriptor... ↩
Originally, the "Save the World" Fortnite game involved building a 'fort' (geddit?) and defending it against a horde of zombie-type aliens. Then "Battle Royale" launched and went crazy - and now apparently people are having more fun in a "Battle Royale without the building" - because hardcore players will have built themselves a tower fortress in the blink of an eye... ↩

Some Random Nerd