Fortnite has emerged victorious in Omdia’s inaugural Metaverse Games Benchmark, the first product to offer a detailed capability assessment of games aspiring to offer a metaverse. Fortnite pipped Roblox to the top spot, while also fighting off strong competition from Minecraft. Zepeto, Dreams, and Core were the three other titles assessed.

The metaverse can be briefly defined as a virtual shared space allowing users to perform all the activities they'd expect from the real world. The immersivity of games worlds makes them strong starting points for such concepts, and in recent years various games have emerged that also seek to offer a range of entertainment, social, and cultural activities inside their own worlds, while providing a functioning economy that includes commerce between users and from other brands.

The emphasis in this benchmark was on metaverse titles that have video games at their core, or at least as a prominent part of their overall offering, as well as multiple other entertainment options. The six titles had their performances rated against five key metrics judged integral to the creation of a successful metaverse: scale, monetization, entertainment, interaction, and technology. Each of these was broken down into a further three sub-categories, with rankings produced for each metric. 

Fortnite took first place in two of the categories and never dropped out of the top three in the remainder. However, four different titles managed at least one category win – with Roblox prevailing in terms of monetization, for example – demonstrating how no one game currently has all the answers. Meanwhile, the top-ranked game taking just 60% of the maximum score shows how much further all titles will need to travel to reach their dream destination of a truly compelling metaverse. And with strong competition emerging from tech giants – VR social space and game-creation title Facebook Horizon is currently in beta – it remains to be seen whether Fortnite can hold on to top spot in subsequent benchmarks.   
 
Dom Tait, Research Director of the Games team, commented: “So much has been written on the metaverse but there is little, if anything, that seeks to quantify and rank the measures taken by leading games to create their versions of it. With the Metaverse Games Benchmark, our aim was to address two urgent needs. First, in identifying, categorizing, and ranking games against the critical factors needed to create a metaverse, we aim to help shape thinking about best practice for games companies with similar aspirations. Second, the product acts as a vital tool for brands looking to understand the metaverse, especially in terms of what current options best fit their own need to find effective outlets for quantifiable digital opportunities.”