Why Hasn't China Created a Similar Project Yet

Introduction: The Concept, Not the Device

We are developing a general-purpose virtual world constructor on Unreal Engine. The key idea is not its attachment to VR headsets—they are merely one option, a window into the created universe. The essence of the project is to provide a tool for easily creating entire worlds, which can then be populated, explored, and modified, whether via mouse and keyboard, trackers, a headset, or any other future interface.

While working on this, I constantly ask myself: why hasn't Epic Games itself done this already? After all, this is the quintessence of their engine's evolution: from a tool for creating games to a tool for creating spaces of being. Or why haven't Chinese tech giants, with their zeal for adaptation, delved into UE's open-source code and created their own "Demiurge in a Box"?

The answers lie not in technology, but in strategic positioning and market imperatives.

Part 1: Epic Games — The Walled Garden Strategy

Epic Games recognizes the power of its engine. But their strategy is not to sell the most universal constructor; it is to cultivate the largest and most loyal ecosystem.

    UEFN (Unreal Editor for Fortnite) is their "Demiurge."

    Epic is not interested in creating a neutral tool. They are creating a closed standard for their own metaverse. Their platform is Fortnite. Their audience is hundreds of millions of players. Their economy is internal transactions and currency. UEFN is an extremely powerful constructor, but its final product is an island within Fortnite. This is a "walled garden" strategy: you can create anything you want, but only inside our park and by our rules.

        Why would they want neutrality? An independent constructor that spawns worlds living anywhere (on PC, in SteamVR, on a mobile device) weakens their central platform. Why create a tool that could build a competitor to your own metaverse?

    Focus on Gamification. The entire DNA of Epic and UEFN is tailored for creating game content. My project, however, is oriented towards "general purpose": education, architectural visualization, digital twins, social spaces, interactive art. In these fields, scoring systems and combat prop-hunting are not the main focus.

    Ecosystem Economics. It's easier to manage and monetize a single platform (Fortnite) than to support a scattered army of creators whose creations live outside your control. It's more profitable for Epic for every created world to work towards strengthening their own kingdom.

Part 2: The Chinese Paradox — Why Didn't They Copy the Universality?

The assertion that Unreal Engine wasn't copied because they "didn't want to" is incorrect. It wasn't copied because it is economically unviable. And creating a universal constructor on top of it is strategically non-obvious.

    The Curse of Support. Creating a UE clone means dooming yourself to an eternal, costly race to keep up with the original. And creating a serious constructor on top of UE isn't just "copying code." It's building a complex editor, an intuitive interface, an asset management system, and, most importantly, a comprehensible business model for creators. This is a Herculean effort, comparable to developing an engine itself.

    Culture of the Immediate Market. The Chinese tech sector is phenomenally strong at rapidly adapting to existing demand. The market for universal "general-purpose" world constructors today is hypothetical and niche. It is much more profitable to:

        License UE and make specific, commercially successful games or applications on it.

        Create highly specialized platforms for online education, virtual events, or e-commerce, where the focus is on a specific task, not universal creativity.

        Invest in ready-made ecosystems, as Tencent does by owning a stake in Epic Games itself.

    Lack of a Ready-Made Paradigm. In the West, there is a culture of projects like "Roblox" or "Core," but they are still geared towards games. The idea of a "PowerPoint for virtual worlds"—be it for managers, teachers, or architects—has not yet created mass demand. Chinese companies prefer to wait until the West paves the way, and then enter the ready-made market with better localization and monetization.

Part 3: Our Window of Opportunity — Agnosticism and Freedom

So, the giants aren't doing this because they are interested in ecosystems, not neutral tools. It is in this situation that my opportunity is born.

    Device Agnosticism is a Strength. My project does not dictate to the user how to interact with the world. Want to build a city with a mouse on a laptop? Go ahead. Want to put on a headset and walk through it? Go ahead. Want to use AR glasses for a hybrid view? Go ahead. This freedom is critically important for adoption in corporate, educational, and professional environments, where a single standard does not and will not exist.

    Focus on "General Purpose": We are not competing with UEFN for game designers. We are creating a tool for the engineer who wants to showcase a digital twin of a factory; for the historian recreating ancient Rome; for the artist holding an exhibition. This is a different market with different needs.

    Creator Sovereignty. A world created in my constructor belongs to the creator. They can deploy it on their own server, sell access to it, integrate it with their systems, without looking back at the rules of a single platform's store.

Conclusion: The Creation is More Important Than the Platform

The throne of the universal world constructor is vacant not due to technical complexity, but due to the strategic choices of the giants. They are building kingdoms. We, however, are creating machine tools and instruments with which anyone can build their own kingdom, without swearing allegiance to any emperor.

While Epic fertilizes the soil in its Fortnite garden, We are working on a universal seed that can sprout in any soil. And in this lies the fundamental difference. That project is not an answer to UEFN. It is an alternative philosophy, where value lies not in the platform where a world lives, but in the very power of its easy and free creation.

And in a world where the boundaries between digital and physical are increasingly blurred, such power will be in demand long before everyone puts on a VR headset.