Epic Games Supports Blender Foundation with $1.2M • Hacker News Board

Re: Epic Games Supports Blender Foundation with $1.2M

#241

Post by Wowfunhappy » Tue, Jul 16, 2019, 1:24 PM UTC

hombre_fatal wrote: post #88

Rotten194 wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, but how does running a Windows game on Linux = cheating? I understand the need for modern multiplayer games to have anticheat (however unfortunate, and I still refuse to play games that use literal rootkit-esque anticheat [1]), but just trying to run a game on Linux isn't cheating in itself. Does Wine help cheats cloak themselves? [1] e.g., https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/NProtect_GameGuard

Well, using Tor doesn't mean you're looking to abuse a website. But you may find out that 99% of your Tor traffic is abuse and decide it's worthwhile to you and your users to block it. I would imagine Wine is in a similar predicament.

I find it hard to believe that a majority of people running Fortnite under Wine would be attempting to cheat. Even if Wine would make cheating somewhat easier, would it really be that significant?

It seems far more likely to that most players are just using Wine for its intended purpose—to play Fortnite on Linux.

Re: Epic Games Supports Blender Foundation with $1.2M

#242

Post by AnIdiotOnTheNet » Tue, Jul 16, 2019, 2:03 PM UTC

seventhtiger wrote: post #238

AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 30% out of the majority of PC game sales, and what do we have to show for it? Steam links, Steam controllers, Steam on Linux, Proton, and the OpenVR SDK to name a few. Sure several of those things were failures, but it isn't like they aren't trying. > In the video game industry developers are the ones that bring the most value to customers. That's some trickle-down theory right there. I'm not convinced that what's…

It's not trickle-down theory. It's actual redistribution of wealth from publishers to developers. If a developer you like cuts a deal with Epic and ensures their own existence for one more game, then you should be very happy. Studio closures are common, game services shut down, mass layoffs, and project cancellations. An exclusivity deal is much better than a publisher going in and changing monetization or game desig…

> If a developer you like cuts a deal with Epic and ensures their own existence for one more game, then you should be very happy.

Where do you get off telling me how I should feel? The way I feel is that exclusivity that has nothing to do with technical constraints and everything to do with corporate sumo wrestling is not and never will be good for gaming as a whole.

Re: Epic Games Supports Blender Foundation with $1.2M

#243

Post by seventhtiger » Tue, Jul 16, 2019, 2:13 PM UTC

AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #242

seventhtiger wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not trickle-down theory. It's actual redistribution of wealth from publishers to developers. If a developer you like cuts a deal with Epic and ensures their own existence for one more game, then you should be very happy. Studio closures are common, game services shut down, mass layoffs, and project cancellations. An exclusivity deal is much better than a publisher going in and changing monetization or game desig…

> If a developer you like cuts a deal with Epic and ensures their own existence for one more game, then you should be very happy. Where do you get off telling me how I should feel? The way I feel is that exclusivity that has nothing to do with technical constraints and everything to do with corporate sumo wrestling is not and never will be good for gaming as a whole.

Not you personally. Rhetorical you, the gamer.

Exclusivity can be good if it results in more games being developed, at a better quality, cheaper. Do you disagree with that?

Re: Epic Games Supports Blender Foundation with $1.2M

#244

Post by ZeikJT » Tue, Jul 16, 2019, 3:00 PM UTC

AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #100

ssully wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am interested in hearing other opinions, but I personally do not care about exclusivity. I can download any store front application (Steam, Epic, GoG, Uplay, etc) for free, so the only inconvenience is having another app. Compare this to the days of console exclusives, and it's almost a non-issue. Outside of couch coop, I have no familiarity with Xbox exclusives like Gears or Halo because I could never afford more…

> Compare this to the days of console exclusives, and it's almost a non-issue. That's the thing though, console exclusives at least saved developers the resources needed to port to another console. Especially in ye olden days, that was a non-trivial cost. The storefront exclusivity on PCs is completely artificial. But also, yeah, my computer is full of enough bloated useless-ware. At least GoG and Itch don't make me…

I wouldn't say it's completely artificial. Steam offers APIs for things like cloud saving, workshop, achievements, cards, etc. and any games that want to make use of those things pays dev costs to integrate it EXCLUSIVELY for the Steam version. I'm sure the Epic Games Store offers something similar and more dev costs would be associated there to integrate. And so on.

Re: Epic Games Supports Blender Foundation with $1.2M

#245

Post by lexs » Tue, Jul 16, 2019, 3:24 PM UTC

johnnyanmac wrote: post #176

goobynight wrote: post #93

So, this will fund ~2-3 people over the next 3 years. That's by my estimate.

keep in mind the Blender Foundation is based in The Netherlands, not San Francisco. That salary might go a much, much longer way compared to if Blender was based in the US (maybe, I do not know the average compensation for skill programmers in that country).

According to Glassdoor the average "programmer" salary in the Netherlands is 60.000€ ($67.000) [0] compared to 74.000€ ($84.000) in San Francisco [1]

[0]https://www.glassdoor.co.uk/Salaries/netherlands-programmer-...

[1] https://www.glassdoor.co.uk/Salaries/san-francisco-programme...

Re: Epic Games Supports Blender Foundation with $1.2M

#246

Post by mrguyorama » Tue, Jul 16, 2019, 3:47 PM UTC

ThatPlayer wrote: post #147

mrguyorama wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The store does not have a shopping cart feature, and started flagging people for fraud for buying multiple games in a row during a huge sale

That's a problem with their anti-fraud not a problem with missing a shopping cart. And that's probably been fixed. iTunes, Apple App Store, Google Play Store, even Amazon Kindle book store, all are missing carts. Because a one-click buy is way easier to navigate than adding to cart, going to cart, and then finally checking out.

Does epic have one click buy? I also don't agree that one click buy is better for the consumer, as I like to see all the money I'm spending when buying multiple games, but that's opinion of course.

Re: Epic Games Supports Blender Foundation with $1.2M

#247

Post by mrguyorama » Tue, Jul 16, 2019, 3:50 PM UTC

chc wrote: post #152

mrguyorama wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The store does not have a shopping cart feature, and started flagging people for fraud for buying multiple games in a row during a huge sale

Even if everything you're saying here is 100% true, I don't see how it would support the accusation that Tim wants to force everyone to use his launcher, which is what I quoted and took issue with. Can you explain how the lack of a shopping cart and some mistaken bans are meant to prove the accusation true?

What I said does not support the that accusation. Are you saying a business does not want to own 100% of the market? Are you disagreeing with the "force" verbiage?

Re: Epic Games Supports Blender Foundation with $1.2M

#248

Post by chc » Tue, Jul 16, 2019, 3:59 PM UTC

mrguyorama wrote: post #247

chc wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if everything you're saying here is 100% true, I don't see how it would support the accusation that Tim wants to force everyone to use his launcher, which is what I quoted and took issue with. Can you explain how the lack of a shopping cart and some mistaken bans are meant to prove the accusation true?

What I said does not support the that accusation. Are you saying a business does not want to own 100% of the market? Are you disagreeing with the "force" verbiage?

Yes, I was disagreeing with the thing I quoted. Given that saltminer was contrasting Tim's desire to "force everyone" to use his launcher with Valve's wishes for the world, I don't think it was uncharitable to read it as an accusation of something more nefarious than run-of-the-mill capitalism.

Re: Epic Games Supports Blender Foundation with $1.2M

#249

Post by learc83 » Tue, Jul 16, 2019, 4:18 PM UTC

zlsa wrote: post #208

gamblor956 wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The costs aren't 30%. Assume a $50 game. 100,000 sales. 5 gigs. Storage and bandwidth = $28,000 (per Amazon's calculator) Cost of doing business in N countries = use paypal = 2.9%+0.30/sale = approximately $1.75/sale = $175,000 Costs = $203,000 Revenue = $5,000,000 Ratio = 4.1% So yeah, Valve is not the shining knight here and that 30% fee is unjustifiable. Even Epic's 12% share is still very much profitable for Epic…

I don't have any numbers, but I would not expect the median sale price to be anywhere near $50. I'd expect there to be more sales of $30 games. And the cost of distribution goes up relative to the cost of the game as the sale price goes down.

Assuming the sale price of the game in the OP's example was $10, distribution still cost less than 3%, and paypal goes up very slightly because of the $0.30 base charge, but the main fee is percentage based so it doesn't change. So even for a $10 game we're looking at less than 9% in total.

This example is also using s3 retail pricing and paypal retail pricing, which already factors in profits for Amazon and Paypal.

None of the big marketplace's costs are anywhere near 30%.

Re: Epic Games Supports Blender Foundation with $1.2M

#250

Post by soulofmischief » Tue, Jul 16, 2019, 4:47 PM UTC

Tossrock wrote: post #190

soulofmischief wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Maya is the much more popular program with artists for modelling and rigging This is the circular reasoning I'm trying to avoid. I'm not looking for any one thing either, I'm looking for any shortcomings OP can think of. I've used Blender+Unreal for a number of years and Blender itself for over fifteen years so I could rattle off issues I've dealt with in integrating Blender into the pipeline, but many have been de…

Not the OP, but I've used Blender and UE (though Unity more), and I would say the main problem with Blender is how undiscoverable the core actions in the interface are. I'm sure for you, as a 15 year user, the shortcuts are all perfectly ingrained, and you can crank out work very efficiently. However, if you don't already know all those shortcuts, it's very difficult to learn them, or even to learn what functionality…

The quick menu is accessible with Spacebar and provides a way to discover and call any available command. Shortcuts are not necessary for discoverability.

However, shortcuts are well-configured and when using pie menus, you only need to know a handful of them to get started.

> If you don't, then you have to click the drop down mode selection menu, which is one of the dozens of widgets on screen

Tab is one of the first (and only) shortcuts you need to know to get started. The same options can still be accessed from the quick menu however. I wouldn't call this a discoverability issue.

> what the hell is 'Grease Pencil'?

Ask the documentation.

> when in the UV workspace, there's literally nothing in the interface window except the vertices/edges. How do I select all vertices? How do I select multiple via box? How do I do numeric input?

With the same exact gestures used to select vertices in edit mode. Blender's UI is highly consistent these days. Numeric input is as easy as calling an action and then typing in the number before confirming with Enter.

> The defaults are also terrible - eg click to set 3D cursor, instead of select.

I wouldn't call this terrible, just different-- and besides, Blender Foundation has just recently made the cursor defaults reflect the common defaults found in other 3D modeling packages.

> Overall, Blender seems to suffer from a classic case of open-source programmer driven development.

Have you used Blender in the last 7 or so years? These seem like antiquated criticisms. The Blender UX is vastly different and much more focused these days.

Every modeling suite has a learning curve. I'm interested in what Blender is sorely lacking. Blender's discoverability is actually very good and Blender itself might be my favorite example of how to design functional application UX. This wasn't true a decade ago but it's true now.