Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The future of Unreal Tournament begins today

unrealengine.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 149 posts

Re: The future of Unreal Tournament begins today

#71

Post by moistgorilla »

baddox wrote: post #7

> When the game is playable, it will be free. Not free to play, just free. > We’ll eventually create a marketplace where developers, modders, artists and gamers can give away, buy and sell mods and content. Earnings from the marketplace will be split between the mod/content developer, and Epic. That’s how we plan to pay for the game. What distinction are they trying to make between "free to play" and "free"? To my un…

I guess it's free in the sense that UT4 is a complete game, you will not need to pay to experience UT4. The extra content is made by the players themselves and can be given away for free or sold.

Re: The future of Unreal Tournament begins today

#72

Post by danudey »

vezzy-fnord wrote: post #60
Pxtl wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They said "free" but not necessarily "free/open-source"... they might just mean they won't be doing an e-shop in game.

You're right, it's gratis. I highly doubt it'll satisfy the definition of free/open source software, as it'll (understandably) lack redistribution rights. It's still a highly daring development model, all things considered. The concept itself is hardly new, but it's the first time an AAA developer has adopted it. Correct me if I'm wrong.

It also won't satisfy the definition of free/open source software in that the source code likely won't be available under an open-source license (though they're using GitHub, so maybe).

They didn't say word one about the code being open; just the development process and the progress they're making.

Re: The future of Unreal Tournament begins today

#73

Post by davexunit »

martindale wrote: post #63

Free as in freedom (libertas), or free as in free beer (gratis)?

Free as in beer. The Unreal engine is proprietary software, and this new UT game will be, too. Epic is using the word "open" and hosting the source code on GitHub, but it's still proprietary (freedom denying) software.

Re: The future of Unreal Tournament begins today

#74

Post by danudey »

baddox wrote: post #7

> When the game is playable, it will be free. Not free to play, just free. > We’ll eventually create a marketplace where developers, modders, artists and gamers can give away, buy and sell mods and content. Earnings from the marketplace will be split between the mod/content developer, and Epic. That’s how we plan to pay for the game. What distinction are they trying to make between "free to play" and "free"? To my un…

The distinction is that they won't be monetizing Unreal Tournament 'the game'; there won't be gems to purchase, or hats to buy, or whatever else.

They will be providing a marketplace where other people can sell their own content that they create, which is optional and not (necessarily?) integrated into the main game.

The implication of 'free to play' is that the game itself is full of opportunities to monetize players, or that progression can be sped with currency which you can earn/buy, etc, and that the developer will be splitting their time between bugfixes/features and producing new content to sell to people (at varying levels of balance between the two).

The difference here is that the developers are producing two separate things: one, a 3D tournament-style FPS; and two, a shop where people can sell game content that they've created, and make money from it (or presumably give it away for free).

Re: The future of Unreal Tournament begins today

#77

Post by jholman »

Pxtl wrote: post #49
gtaylor wrote: post #2

Not only is this a really awesome thing for Epic to do, it could have much further-reaching consequences than UT if it's successful. At the very minimum, it's going to be an excellent source of quality net/graphics code samples for UE4 developers. If it's wildly successful, we may see some neat ripples around the industry. Also, this thing is going to get Occulus'd, Hydra'd, and everything else. That's going to be fu…

They said "free" but not necessarily "free/open-source"... they might just mean they won't be doing an e-shop in game.

In fact, their FAQ says that the UE4 code will be incompatible with free licenses, in particular GPL and CC.

https://www.unrealengine.com/faq , Ctrl-F for "copyleft".

Re: The future of Unreal Tournament begins today

#78

Post by wfjackson »

Pxtl wrote: post #49
gtaylor wrote: post #2

Not only is this a really awesome thing for Epic to do, it could have much further-reaching consequences than UT if it's successful. At the very minimum, it's going to be an excellent source of quality net/graphics code samples for UE4 developers. If it's wildly successful, we may see some neat ripples around the industry. Also, this thing is going to get Occulus'd, Hydra'd, and everything else. That's going to be fu…

They said "free" but not necessarily "free/open-source"... they might just mean they won't be doing an e-shop in game.

Even ignoring the e-shop, AFAIK, you need the Unreal Engine to build the source and it's Open Source but not exactly free/Free.

Previous discussion on Unreal Engine 4.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7429774

Re: The future of Unreal Tournament begins today

#79

Post by eyko »

danudey wrote: post #72
vezzy-fnord wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're right, it's gratis. I highly doubt it'll satisfy the definition of free/open source software, as it'll (understandably) lack redistribution rights. It's still a highly daring development model, all things considered. The concept itself is hardly new, but it's the first time an AAA developer has adopted it. Correct me if I'm wrong.

It also won't satisfy the definition of free/open source software in that the source code likely won't be available under an open-source license (though they're using GitHub, so maybe). They didn't say word one about the code being open; just the development process and the progress they're making.

> All code and content will be available live to UE4 developers on GitHub.
Post reply on HN