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Epic Games Supports Blender Foundation with $1.2M

blender.org

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Re: Epic Games Supports Blender Foundation with $1.2M

#61

Post by Deimorz »

foota wrote: post #34
sgarman wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The % deal they are offering is a good start but I'm not sure buying exclusivity of game releases is good for "fairness in the gaming industry."

I agree with their stance that exclusives are the only way to break the hold Steam has on the market.

Yes, it's the only way when your product is objectively worse than Steam in practically every way, so the only way to get anyone to use it is to force them.

It's not a good approach to competition though, and only hurts users instead of motivating innovation. I agree that Steam could use some competition, but Epic isn't actually competing with them, they're just forcibly buying their way into the market.

Re: Epic Games Supports Blender Foundation with $1.2M

#64

Post by ThrowawayR2 »

Jach wrote: post #59
ThrowawayR2 wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A few exclusives is more than worth breaking Valve's near-monopoly and 30% toll on game revenue. That 30% is coming straight out of gamers' pockets and HN usually hates middlemen; it's baffling to see so many people in support of Valve.

30% became the industry standard not just for video games for a reason. It costs money to seamlessly do business across n countries, and it's not like Valve does nothing else to try and earn that fee either. Epic's play is to try and see if being a better looking deal for game devs will translate to being better for gamers or other groups (like linux users, open source advocates) too. We'll see. Valve has already dem…

> 30% became the industry standard not just for video games for a reason.

Yeah, it became the industry standard because it rakes in mind-blowingly huge revenue for the app store owner, e.g. https://www.cultofmac.com/601492/app-store-google-play-reven.... From the article: "It’s no wonder Services — which includes App Store revenue — has become an increasingly important business for Apple as hardware sales have slowed.".

While you're correct that it costs money to run Steam, it's not _that_ much money.

Re: Epic Games Supports Blender Foundation with $1.2M

#65

Post by nyokodo »

ngngngng wrote: post #36
groovybits wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"“Open tools, libraries and platforms are critical to the future of the digital content ecosystem,” said Tim Sweeney, founder and CEO of Epic Games." Contradictory sentiments like these are what lead me to believe this grant is mostly for marketing purposes. (tin-foil hat mode)

Who cares? "I don't give a rip whose money it is, mate" - Steve Irwin, when asked about accepting money from "unethical" groups and using it for conservation. https://youtu.be/-1gVkTFam1w?t=753 If it helps a good goal, what does it matter?

If accepting the money implies or enforces certain favors in return even if that is just silence, then it matters. If making the donation is used as a PR smokescreen to advance or obscure other unethical behavior, then it matters. That doesn't mean the money shouldn't be accepted it just means organizations should not allow donations to change their behavior and if a donation has a detectable nefarious ulterior motive then they should think twice about accepting the cash.

Re: Epic Games Supports Blender Foundation with $1.2M

#66

Post by mattferderer »

binthere wrote: post #40

As someone who's done lots of Blender work as well as Maya and integrations with Unity and Unreal Engine, I still think there's quite a long way to go to make Blender a good option for game development. It's free, it kind of works but it's very painful when it comes to animation, texturing, and details. Right now, this is what I usually do: - Basic Modeling: Blender - Sculpting + Details: ZBrush - Painting: Substance…

I'm curious why you would use Blender over Maya for modeling if you have both?

I tried Blender a decade ago but since I had access to Maya & 3D Studio Max I didn't give it much attempt since the UI seemed more confusing & the material available to learn was lacking.

Re: Epic Games Supports Blender Foundation with $1.2M

#67

Post by foota »

Deimorz wrote: post #61
foota wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with their stance that exclusives are the only way to break the hold Steam has on the market.

Yes, it's the only way when your product is objectively worse than Steam in practically every way, so the only way to get anyone to use it is to force them. It's not a good approach to competition though, and only hurts users instead of motivating innovation. I agree that Steam could use some competition, but Epic isn't actually competing with them, they're just forcibly buying their way into the market.

Is steam really that great? I say this as someone who plays many hours of games.

I think some things they do well are (which are admittedly important things):

* reliability * security * fast downloads * consistent achievements between games

But I think they're lagging others (mainly discord) in chat and social. Their voice quality is comparatively horrible. They don't really have a good space for a group to have a server like discord does, which really helps with cohesion. So while I definitely don't think epic is killing it in any of these areas, I don't think steam has that much going for it outside their core competency.

Re: Epic Games Supports Blender Foundation with $1.2M

#68

Post by bhouston »

Commoditize one's compliments: https://jasongriffey.net/wp/2012/04/19/commoditizing-our-com...

Unreal Engine, like Unity, right now has to be used with Autodesk products like 3DS Max or Maya, or at least that is the case with the large majority of professionals. This is an impediment to using Unreal Engine and thus makes Epic Games sort of dependent on Autodesk.

There is probably no coincidence that the new general manager of Unreal Engine is an ex-Autodesk SVP, Marc Petit, who used to be in charge of Maya, 3DS Max, etc for a decade (https://www.awn.com/news/marc-petit-leaves-autodesk). He definitely sees the value of building up Blender to remove the dependence of Unreal Engine on expensive tools from other vendors.

Re: Epic Games Supports Blender Foundation with $1.2M

#69

Post by Impossible »

groovybits wrote: post #32
Andrex wrote: post #29

In the spirit of supporting open software, it would be fantastic if Epic Games Store and its DRM warmed up to Linux next. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19844241

"“Open tools, libraries and platforms are critical to the future of the digital content ecosystem,” said Tim Sweeney, founder and CEO of Epic Games." Contradictory sentiments like these are what lead me to believe this grant is mostly for marketing purposes. (tin-foil hat mode)

There is a future where in the long term Unreal Engine (and maybe Unity3D as well) is FOSS in the same way that browsers are. Epic's business model would have to move away from engine royalties, which currently depends on the success of their store or potentially lasting longevity and growth of Fortnite.

Re: Epic Games Supports Blender Foundation with $1.2M

#70

Post by scj »

scarejunba wrote: post #39
groovybits wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"“Open tools, libraries and platforms are critical to the future of the digital content ecosystem,” said Tim Sweeney, founder and CEO of Epic Games." Contradictory sentiments like these are what lead me to believe this grant is mostly for marketing purposes. (tin-foil hat mode)

Often when people see others do a good thing, they argue that those people aren't doing all the good things. They think this incentivizes doing all the good things. They are wrong.

Blender is a complimentary offering. Improving it indirectly boosts business.

Assuming there are tax benefits for donating, it becomes a win-win.

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