Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney is putting his money where his mouth is: four years ago he told me that the future of gaming was user-driven, and today Epic is leading a $15 million investment round in Manticore Games.

Manticore is the maker of Core, a game creation and sharing tool that aims to allow anyone to create online multiplayer games and share them with friends and the world Think of Dreams on the PlayStation, but not so stylish and surprising, but with plans for a creator economy, where popular game designers can make money from their creations. Manticore plans to set aside $1 million to pay creators, for starters.

I tried Core earlier this year and thought it might be cool to play with a group of friends, but wasn't blown away by its performance. Epic, however, sees potential. [Epic president Adam Sussman said in a press release. At Epic, we believe the gaming industry will eventually move closer to open platforms that allow creators to build their own worlds," said Adam Sussman, president of Epic in a press release. Core, built on the Unreal Engine, embodies this future and goes one step further to provide an environment where anyone can create great multiplayer games and a metaverse playground where players can discover endless entertainment.

This statement closely mirrors what Sweeney told me when I interviewed him in 2016 about the future of 3D graphics and games.

"When I think about what gaming will look like in 10 years," he said at the time, "it will no longer be just a bunch of made-up single-player games that companies spend billions of dollars on and have thousands of people make. "It's going to be user-driven. Users will create things and build seamless environments for social interaction and gameplay. It's all about enabling users to make this happen on their own. You will see millions of indie communities contributing to it, as opposed to the 400,000 games shipped to the App Store, most of which have failed.

See, he was bitter about Apple even back then; you can't say Epic hasn't been consistent.

Core recently held a contest where users could create over 150 games based on Dungeons & Dragons. It's free if you want to check it out. All you have to do is download the client and create an account on Core's website.