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Epic Games banked a $3B profit in 2018

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Re: Epic Games banked a $3B profit in 2018

#131

Post by techopoly »

kevinventullo wrote: post #112
aphextron wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Gamers deserve better"? What is that supposed to mean? It means they deserve better than all the garbage that's been pushed out over the last 5 years or so since Unity and Unreal became free, and Steam relaxed its submission standards. There's been a massive wave of terrible "games" that people are just forced to accept because they don't know any better. I'm not hating on indie game devs in general, there are of…

There would be no Fortnite if it wasn't for Brendan Greene aka PlayerUnknown, who is basically single-handedly responsible for creating the Battle Royale game genre. I see no problem in him attempting to make some money on his creation before a AAA giant comes in and sucks the air out of the room.

It's been a point of contention recently, the question of who created battle royale. Perhaps Greene is responsible for the modern iteration of it, but the last-man-standing concept has been around in gaming since Bomberman in 1983. And the concept of battle royale in general was popularized with the Hunger Games and of course the film named Battle Royale. And, "battle royale" as a phrase was used by Ralph Ellison in 1952 in his classic novel Invisible Man, describing a free-for-all boxing match that the protagonist must participate in. So Brendan Greene didn't come up with this out of thin air, or at least he wasn't the first.

On the other hand, I see no problem with him trying to profit from it either.

Edit: I correct myself -- in Invisible Man, the phrase was "battle royal," not "battle royale." It's still clearly similar however.

Re: Epic Games banked a $3B profit in 2018

#132

Post by techopoly »

Reedx wrote: post #7

> ...has popularized the battle royale category — think Lord of the Flies meets Hunger Games — almost single-handedly... Almost single-handedly? This is a bizarre claim and it's like rewriting history.

Not sure what Lord of the Flies has to do with battle royale...

Re: Epic Games banked a $3B profit in 2018

#133

Post by MattRix »

lghh wrote: post #121
aphextron wrote: post #43

I don't really like Fortnite, but I'm really really happy for Epic's success. PUBG was a flaming dumpster heap that only caught on because the Battle Royale mechanic is naturally fun and people were clamoring for that type of game. But it was an unqualified mess from a subpar developer, and that always annoyed me because gamers deserved better. Now Epic has been rescued from sliding into obscurity and they've got mas…

While I agree that PUBG is a dumpster heap technically, it really is a legitimately fun game. I enjoy it much more than Fortnite, and if it performed halfway decently it would be one of my favorite games of all time. I think Fortnite's success is great and it is very clear why it is more popular than PUBG could have ever hoped to be, but I will always be partial to the slow, suffocating, horror of feeling alone in th…

As a big fan of Fortnite I was ready to disagree with you but that's actually spot on. There is a massive difference in the pacing of the two games, and there are audiences for both.

Re: Epic Games banked a $3B profit in 2018

#134

Post by akhilcacharya »

aphextron wrote: post #43

I don't really like Fortnite, but I'm really really happy for Epic's success. PUBG was a flaming dumpster heap that only caught on because the Battle Royale mechanic is naturally fun and people were clamoring for that type of game. But it was an unqualified mess from a subpar developer, and that always annoyed me because gamers deserved better. Now Epic has been rescued from sliding into obscurity and they've got mas…

That's ironic, because PubG was miles better optimized and looking than DayZ Standalone or the mod.

Re: Epic Games banked a $3B profit in 2018

#135

Post by ecp9 »

aphextron wrote: post #43

I don't really like Fortnite, but I'm really really happy for Epic's success. PUBG was a flaming dumpster heap that only caught on because the Battle Royale mechanic is naturally fun and people were clamoring for that type of game. But it was an unqualified mess from a subpar developer, and that always annoyed me because gamers deserved better. Now Epic has been rescued from sliding into obscurity and they've got mas…

I thought pubg was a remarkable technical achievement, especially after years of tolerating bugs and jank in Arma.

Re: Epic Games banked a $3B profit in 2018

#136

Post by Reedx »

alexeldeib wrote: post #25
Reedx wrote: post #7

> ...has popularized the battle royale category — think Lord of the Flies meets Hunger Games — almost single-handedly... Almost single-handedly? This is a bizarre claim and it's like rewriting history.

Besides PUBG, who else has done this in a successful way? Fortnite wasn’t the original but it blows the success of PUBG out of the water at this point. I’m okay with “PUBG + Fortnite” ~= “almost single handedly”. I think the key word in that quote is popularized — even if earlier games did it, these are the two to demonstrate widespread appeal.

Right, the problem is they didn't say PUBG + Fortnite. That's not single-handedly.

PUBG proved out the incredible appeal and potential of Battle Royale. Despite being a technical mess, it was a massive success and a game changer for the industry. It was the key catalyst and why Fortnite (and many others) added the mode.

This is not to take anything away from Fortnite though! They absolutely took it to the next level of awareness.

Re: Epic Games banked a $3B profit in 2018

#137

Post by MattRix »

a13n wrote: post #127
Cu3PO42 wrote: post #46

I think it is commendable that Epic used some of this profit to change their Unreal Engine Marketplace rates in favour of the developers. Similar to their store that is mentioned in the article, the revenue split is now 88/12. This change will be applied retroactively to all past transactions [1]. My understanding is the split was previously 70/30 as common in other online stores—those should be some hefty payouts fo…

Eh, that move is definitely nice for developers, but it's still self-serving. They're in an uphill battle against steam's moat, and increasing rates is a way of attracting more developers.

Sure, but even going to 25 or 20 percent would have been big. To go all the way down to 12% is absurd (though as a game dev I'm certainly not complaining!)

Re: Epic Games banked a $3B profit in 2018

#138

Post by MattRix »

zanny wrote: post #107
munchbunny wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's too bad, but arena shooters have been dying as a category ever since around UT3. I'm hopeful they'll make a resurgence in the future.

Arena shooters are "dying" for the same reason chess isn't as popular as online poker. Back in the day arena shooter popularity was because there was no low hanging fruit alternative like modern military shooters or Fortnite of today. But it turns out most people don't want to either participate in or watch games of absolute skill. The former requires a lot of commitment to get good at it, and there is no randomness…

Anyone with any sense of these games work would see that modern games like Fortnite or Overwatch take more skill than typical arena shooters. You still need to have the raw mechanical aim skill, but now there are a host of other mechanical, tactical and cooperative skills to master on top of that.

Re: Epic Games banked a $3B profit in 2018

#139

Post by Cu3PO42 »

a13n wrote: post #127
Cu3PO42 wrote: post #46

I think it is commendable that Epic used some of this profit to change their Unreal Engine Marketplace rates in favour of the developers. Similar to their store that is mentioned in the article, the revenue split is now 88/12. This change will be applied retroactively to all past transactions [1]. My understanding is the split was previously 70/30 as common in other online stores—those should be some hefty payouts fo…

Eh, that move is definitely nice for developers, but it's still self-serving. They're in an uphill battle against steam's moat, and increasing rates is a way of attracting more developers.

The UE Marketplace is targeted at developers only and sells assets and such for use in UE games. I was not aware that Steam is competing in that area at all and a cursory search didn't yield any such results.

Of course other marketplaces selling assets exist, but I am not aware that one has a dominant market position that Epic are trying hard to surpass. Please do let me know if that is, in fact, the case.

Or are you implying that better rates in the Marketplace will also make it more likely for developers to publish their games on the Epic Store (disregarding the better rates there)?

Re: Epic Games banked a $3B profit in 2018

#140

Post by jplayer01 »

cheeseomlit wrote: post #118
jplayer01 wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought Quake Champions would be the best chance for the genre to be revived. With how popular LoL and DotA and Overwatch are, it seemed like a mix of the traditional arena shooter with special abilities/spells would be a good way to attract that audience. It hasn't. Maybe because Bethesda's efforts still lean too heavily on traditional Quake and they're unwilling to really embrace the RPG/ability aspect of MOBAs.…

The failure of QC has nothing do with them not embracing the RPG/ability aspect of MOBAs, that was always just a gimmick anyways (when QC introduced gametypes without abilities they ended up being more popular). It has everything to do with Bethesda utterly mismanaging the entire project into the ground. They hired Saber Interactive (probably the cheapest studio they could find) instead of going with more expensive i…

It's not a gimmick. It's where I see the only chance for arena shooters. Maybe Bethesda treated it that way, but I genuinely believe that's the only hope there is considering how popular MOBAs are.
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