Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney changed video game industry

>As for building in multiplayer you've got years of work before, putting aside Minecraft, you've got 7 Days to Die, Rust, Arc Survival:Evolved.

7 Days to Die is graphically nowhere near what Fortnite is. Rust had its official release in the same year as Fortnite and ARK was literally made with UE4. That is, the technology Epic used to build Fortnite was used by ARK.

>The article is total dross, Epic took an existing genre and slapped Valve's already proven monetization strategy on it. Other companies were already copying Valve before Epic. Both DOTA + TF2 have been free and make money from hats for over a decade!

You're completely overlooking the part where Valve's initial idea for those games was to push Steam. That way even if the monetization strategy wasn't great it would pay off. Fortnite did not have such a plan initially (at least not that we know of). Valve also wasn't anywhere near first at making their games F2P and monetizing them with microtransactions. F2P games with microtransactions have been a part of Korean MMOs since the early 2000s. There were even private servers of other MMOs that essentially monetized in such a way.

You're not wrong that the battle-royale part of Fortnite was a second attempt at popularizing the game, but the tech to make Fortnite pushed UE4 forward quite a bit. Things like Distance Field Ambient Occlusion were things that might not have made it into the engine without Fortnite.

My brother and I would sit at the computer for hours building elaborate 8-bit worlds fueled mainly by our imaginations.

When I was 8 years old, I remember participating in a contest for which Tim Sweeney wrote me a personal letter. I’ve saved the letter. Here’s the link if you’re interested: https://www.dropbox.com/s/12o0qgg2y1uzd30/1990-91%20album%20...

Thanks, Tim! It’s not every CEO who goes out of his way to encourage a kid. You inspired me.

And games like League (not sure of Dota 2) and TF2 actually give you a slight advantage if you’re willing to pay. In TF2 different items will allow you to perform different attacks if you pay for them and MOBAs allow you to always play certain heroes if you pay for them. This is simply NOT the case with Fortnite and is more similar to Overwatch or CSGO in that regard.

In-game purchases are also different than standard loot boxes seen in other games as others have already mentioned. I won’t repeat myself but the key takeaway is 1) the game is 3rd person view so the perceived value of the cosmetic items is higher to the purchaser and 2) they’re NOT loot boxes.

I can really go on about their battle pass implementation vs the industry standard expansion packs or season passes (that games like COD MW or Apex have copied) or how they continue to innovate and significantly change the gameplay but your mind seems to have been made.

If someone comes in and combines the traits other games have but does it better than all of the rest while continuing to innovate, it is really just copying someone else’s strategy? Games like Arma 3 required mods and ones that “borrowed” the gameplay like PUBG and H1Z1 are clunky as hell to play and go for realism vs cartoon violence that Fortnite favors. Those three games are essentially interchangeable unlike Fortnite, which runs really well on everything but really just the Switch.

Rev split was the best thing to happen to the game industry. Previously, game engines required ridiculous six figure contracts to even get started and meant a fixed cost regardless of the success of the game. We've had no shortage of amazing games thanks to this arrangement.