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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

#161

Post by mnem »

Viker wrote: post #155
techopoly wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

You are just nit picking. He is talking about the closing circle game mechanics. Yes simple but yet genius.

Bomberman shrank the arena when the matches went to sudden death. Pretty sure others also did this (certainly common in single player games of that era and earlier - arguably Joust with it's rising lava is close to being the first for that sort of thing)

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

#163

Post by Waterluvian »

Fortnite's pivot from failed co-op zombie game to... well, this... is incredible.

I would love to have experienced that office environment over that year. I can only imagine that the pivot was a "well, we already have most of the game. What can do we do with it?" hail Mary as they considered what to do short of closure.

I may also be misremembering how dire their situation was. But I thought it was quite dire.

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

#166

Post by fredophile »

yoz-y wrote: post #120
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 dunno. I really like Epic and the Fortnite general tone, but as a mobile player I very much prefer PUBG. For one, even with all the talks about bad optimisation, PUBG runs (or at least at the time of launching ran) way better than Fortnite. Fortnite was totally unplayable on iPhone 6S whereas PUBG ran smoothly. Another thing is that Fortnite mixes players from various platforms and thus had to add autofire to the g…

Comparing the mobile products is a bit unfair. The mobile version of Fortnite is the same game as the console or PC versions. If you try both the mobile and full version of PUBG it is clear that the mobile version is pretty stripped down. The most obvious difference is probably the interiors of buildings.

It's been a while since I tried it but I recall the mobile Fortnite having control options that let you turn off autofire. I'm also pretty sure that matchmaking between mobile and other platforms is opt-in [0]. You shouldn't be up against PC players when you're on your phone.

[0] https://www.polygon.com/2018/3/23/17146848/cross-platform-cr...

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

#167

Post by cheeseomlit »

MattRix wrote: post #138
zanny wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

>You still need to have the raw mechanical aim skill

Not even close to the extent you need to have it for a fast-paced AFPS. Watch some top-level quake gameplay and compare it to top-level Overwatch gameplay, it's night and day. Hell, some OW characters even aim for you or don't need to aim at all to be effective (Winston for example)

>but now there are a host of other mechanical, tactical and cooperative skills to master on top of that

Cooperation sure, OW does put more of an emphasis on teamwork. But as far as mechanical and tactical skill goes I don't see how you can make that argument unless you've never played an AFPS

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

#168

Post by leoc »

MattRix wrote: post #138
zanny wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I can't speak about Fortnite, but movement in Overwatch is in general easier than in arena shooters, no? No bunny-hopping, no explosive jumping, apparently no airstrafing now either ...?

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

#169

Post by cheeseomlit »

jplayer01 wrote: post #140
cheeseomlit wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You might be right considering how poorly "pure" arena shooters have done despite being excellent games (Reflex Arena for example). Personally I prefer to have an even playing field when I play a competitive game, but it seems like I'm in the minority nowadays.

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

#170

Post by Felz »

Viker wrote: post #155
techopoly wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

You are just nit picking. He is talking about the closing circle game mechanics. Yes simple but yet genius.

Like almost all game mechanics, I'm fairly sure I saw this in a WC3 custom map half a decade ago.
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