Epic Games just announced the launch of its new digital Fab Marketplace which is a unified location to purchase various assets.
The news marks an important moment for the company's plans to make it easier for developers to get things they need to buy to create their titles. This could also someday lead to the creation of an interoperable metaverse.
New Fab Marketplace
The first time that the company revealed its plans for the Fab Marketplace was in March last year. The marketplace is said to combine offerings from the Unreal Engine Marketplace, Sketchfab Store, Quixel, and ArtStation Marketplace.
Initially, Epic Games planned to launch the digital Fab Marketplace last year but delayed the official release to this year.
The company is now offering an 88% revenue share for goods that are sold on the Fab Marketplace to match the offer on the Epic Games Store, according to The Verge.
Ahead of the official launch of the Fab Marketplace, Epic Games allowed creators to prepare their products on the Unreal Engine Marketplace and Sketchfab. This gave them time to make these available on the Fab Marketplace.
The company will also share plans regarding updates to the newly launched digital marketplace. The most notable of these is that Epic Games emphasized its plans to add support for offering assets related to Minecraft and Roblox.
The unification of Epic Games' assets from its four other marketplaces will total more than 2.5 million items in a single place. The company said that the Fab Marketplace will be an "open marketplace," CGChannel said.
It noted that it will include various assets pertaining to "all leading content creation tools." This would even include the ones that directly compete with its own products, such as the Unity game engine.
A Variety of Assets
The assets that are available on the Fab Marketplace include a range of content for game development, VFX, motion graphics, and many more. It also features a variety of assets for virtual production, such as 3D models, materials, and environments.
The Fab Marketplace also has a real-time 3D viewer that will let developers fully inspect the assets that they plan to purchase. One major thing about the marketplace is a plug-in for Unreal Engine.
This plug-in would let developers bring their purchases directly into the project that they are working on.
While the social and community features of the new Fab Marketplace are currently limited, Epic Games plans to expand these features moving forward, according to Games Industry.
