The Japanese giant Sony Corporation and the parent group of the Danish company Lego announced on Tuesday, April 12, an investment of two billion dollars in Epic Games, the publisher of the game “Fortnite”, which is considered a phenomenon in the field of video games, in an effort to fund efforts to develop the game. “Metaverse”.
The $2 billion injection is “to advance the company’s goal of building Metaverse and support its continued growth,” said LEGO, Sony and Kirkbi, the holding company for the world’s number one LEGO game.
Sony, which is already a shareholder in Epic Games, and Kirkby, the new shareholder, each invested $1 billion, the three groups said in a joint statement.
She added that she “highly values designers and gamers alike, and wants to create new social entertainment by exploring the relationship between the digital and physical worlds.” This investment brings the value of Epic Games to $31.5 billion.
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On February 2, the Sony Group announced the purchase of video game developer Bungie, famous for its Halo and Destiny games, for $3.6 billion.
“Sony” and “Microsoft” are competing over the ownership of the studios that develop video games that the two companies provide on their two game consoles, “Playstation” and “Xbox”.
Some market analysts believe that these acquisitions may harm the interests of electronic game developers who act independently as a “third party”, other than the game’s producers and marketers via their platforms or through smartphones.
The sector has witnessed mergers and acquisitions recently. The volume of acquisitions in the field of video games tripled last year to reach $26.2 billion, compared to $8.9 billion in 2020. Consumer spending on video games increased last year by 1.4 percent to reach $ 180.3 billion, after it jumped sharply in the year of the Corona epidemic 2020 to increase spending on video games by 23 percent.
The market enforcement authorities fear this concentration of electronic games in the hands of a small group of large companies, not only to protect competition for the benefit of the consumer, but also to protect developers and programmers who work in a “third party” manner.