Epic Games CEO offering $100M in grants for video game creators
This billionaire says the world needs more video games — and he’s putting his money where his mouth is.
Tim Sweeney, founder of “Fortnite” developer Epic Games, is offering $100 million worth of grants with “no strings attached” to game brainiacs.
The program, or Epic MegaGrants, is “our way of sharing Fortnite’s epic success with others,” Sweeney said at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco.
The grants, which will be as small as $5,000 and as large as $500,000, are up for grabs for video game creators, filmmakers and educators — people whose work will benefit “the whole digital content creation ecosystem,” he said.
“We’re here to help financially as much as we can” … with “no commercial hooks back to Epic,” he said, adding grant recipient wannabes don’t have to use the company’s Unreal Engine software.
Recipients could theoretically create rival products to Epic’s offerings, and Epic will not own any percentage of the result or have a say in how or where it is published.
There is no deadline for the $100 million in grant money.