Sony, the creator of the PlayStation game console, invested
$200 million, Epic said, and Appaloosa Management, Baillie Gifford and Fidelity
Management were also among the investors.
Epic’s most recent funding round came last summer, when it
raised $1.78 billion to value the company at $17.3 billion. Sony invested $250
million at the time.
Epic, based in Cary, N.C., was founded in 1991 by Tim
Sweeney, the company’s chief executive. It found success with Unreal Engine, a
platform other developers could use to create games, and with the Gears of War
video game franchise in the mid-2000s. Tencent, the Chinese internet giant,
owns a 40 percent stake in the company.
Epic’s breakthrough came in 2017, when it released Fortnite.
The animated, battle royale-style title has become one of the most popular
video games, and spawned a new generation of livestreaming. It made gamers who
broadcast their play of Fortnite, like Tyler Blevins — known as Ninja — into
wealthy celebrities.
Evan Van Zelfden, the managing director for Games One, an
advisory firm, said Epic’s latest funding round was another indicator of the
success the gaming industry had seen since the pandemic forced people indoors
and glued them to their screens.
He speculated that the eventual next stage for Epic could be
an initial public offering, a move that would “break the market.”
Epic’s funding round comes as the company prepares to take
Apple to court next month in a dispute over the App Store commission that Apple
collects from app developers, including on purchases made within Fortnite when
users are playing on their iPhones.
Last August, Epic encouraged Fortnite players to pay the
company directly rather than go through Apple or Google, prompting the two
companies to boot Fortnite from their respective app stores. Epic responded
with lawsuits.
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