How Unreal Engine can be a brands' stepping stone to the Metaverse

Following on from our event with Collective last year and their previous blog on using the Metaverse for revolutionising other creative industries. In this next post we explore How Unreal Engine can be a brands' stepping stone to the metaverse 

The Metaverse - what really is it? 

It’s fine, you can ask that. There are a lot of ‘clever and informed’ people who still don’t really know - not fully. And that’s because of a common misconception. 

It doesn't actually currently exist. Not properly. 
But one thing is for sure - it will be built by game engines like Unreal Engine. 
Everything in the metaverse will be 3D - so the industry will have to embrace it. It's not that hard to imagine. If you have kids of a certain age, I guarantee they are building 3D worlds all the time in Roblox or Minecraft - it will be second nature in a generation's time. 
Rachel Stones, head of advertising at Epic Games says: “Unreal will be the stepping stone to the Metaverse.” We have to say, we agree. 

But because of all of the above, the reality of the metaverse and how it will be built and how you can utilise it can seem, well, unreal. Hard to grasp and get your head around. It is a mindset shift, but it’s not that difficult. Unreal can save costs, time, carbon and the planet all at once. 

Here are some strategies on how you can use Unreal Engine to build those stepping stones:

Change the way you think about the metaverse 
Currently, there isn’t one metaverse, there are loads of them. Decentraland doesn't talk to Fortnite that doesn’t talk to Roblox. It’s akin to open banking a few years ago. No one really wants to join together at the moment, but like the banks, they will. And it will be gaming engines (and Blockchain) that bring them all together, so you need to know both. 

Learn how to measure the impact 
With the metaverse, we have already passed the first elevation on the adoption curve. The PR value has evaporated - just doing something for the sake of it will get you nothing. For any sort of success, you have to do something now that has demonstrable ROI.

Understand your asset ecosystem
Unreal’s massive strength is the speed at which you can generate assets - from small production to huge global businesses. With Unreal, you make create universal asset, and this can, without rendering, become thousands (if not millions) of assets. And this will be vital for the metaverse, where everything will be 3D and assets will need to change in nano-seconds. 

Stop reading about it and do it
Pick a gaming Engine and learn it. Unreal is great because it is free (up until you're earning more than a £million) and there is a huge community of free help and advice. Tim Sweney, CEO of Epic, is aiming to make this available for everyone and his altruistic view of the metaverse is one we fully subscribe to.