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Metaverse platforms and generative AI show us where we’re heading: a world in which if you can imagine it, you can get it onto the screen.
However, current metaverse platforms are highly centralized, have high rents, are subject to top-down censorship, and are ultimately limited in their expressiveness.
We are in a transformational process—one in which the tools are becoming interoperable, extensible, and democratized. As we move into the Creator Era, the most significant opportunity for the broadest number of developers will occur as games become primarily a creative task instead of a technical one.
Backend Technology has Lagged Behind
Developers are caught between difficult choices for making a Live Services game:
Buy commercial 3D engines + build expensive/risky backend
High-rent, limited-expression platforms such as Roblox
Buy commercial 3D engines + buy (license) a backend
The latter option—buying the technology—seems to give most developers the most economic and risk-adjusted return. However, two reasons stand out for why they might build anyway: a lack of functionality and the risk of relying on a particular vendor.
The Problem of Trust
Live Services technology is a trust business: these products can control the destiny of a game. Even small amounts of downtime can result in massive losses—and an outright failure to scale can be catastrophic to a new launch.
As noted above, platforms can come and go. Even a large platform owner like Amazon does not guarantee continuity, as thousands of games learned when GameSparks was discontinued.
