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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

#251

Post by mikestew »

nikanj wrote: post #239
rchaud wrote: post #153

The interesting part of this article was that Epic intentionally circumvented Google Play Store and required Android users to download the launcher from its own website. Hopefully this leads to more app developers skipping Google Play and launching solo. Of course most apps won't have the name recognition of Fortnite, but I can't imagine discover-ability inside of the Play Store is any better. I got a new phone recen…

The Apple store is just as bad. I tried finding an app that just takes a photo every n seconds until I press stop. I could find endless pages of apps that claimed to do this - but had 1-star ratings because they couldn't actually do the single thing they were supposed to do. Ugh. I remain pretty convinced that there's an app like this out there, but discovering it is just plain impossible.

Hmm, I’ve been looking for an iOS project idea recently...

Seems like something one could crank out in a weekend. But I’m with you on discovery. Finding something that isn’t going to disappoint me gets harder with time.

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

#252

Post by makewavesnotwar »

disposedtrolley wrote: post #248
makewavesnotwar wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're missing a lot of what contributed to Fortnite's success. Namely their ripping off of pretty much every one of Valve's most lucrative decisions of the past 10 years and in principle - Free to play. Fortnite was pretty much a failure when it first launched. Sure they copied PUBG's last-man-standing game mode, but what really made it take off was that you didn't have to pay for the game. You could get it,…

Not even a desktop; a phone, tablet, console, and god knows what else they release it on. I think another major contributor to Fortnite’s success is the scale of cross-platform play that we’ve rarely seen before. Chances are if you have a thing that can connect to the internet, that thing is capable of running Fortnite. They’re like Facebook not just because they have the money to steal any concept and build it in ho…

Yeah definitely. When I said "a desktop" I was trying to say pretty much any desktop, even you mom's 15 year old Dell Dimension desktop, which many phones these days are more powerful than - and the majority of Fortnite's players are younger than.

I also agree about the social network angle, the one area Epic has really shined is their season and special event model. While other games have special events and it's really nothing new, the consistency with which Epic produces them creates a constant buzz around the product. Like rugrat water-cooler talk. And some of their events only last a day or two, so if you take a week off for a vacation, you may miss some major thing that your friends may be talking about for who knows how long. Granted this might be intentional addiction fostering aimed at kids by Epic.

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

#253

Post by epicdefense »

makewavesnotwar wrote: post #246
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 think you're missing a lot of what contributed to Fortnite's success. Namely their ripping off of pretty much every one of Valve's most lucrative decisions of the past 10 years and in principle - Free to play. Fortnite was pretty much a failure when it first launched. Sure they copied PUBG's last-man-standing game mode, but what really made it take off was that you didn't have to pay for the game. You could get it,…

I'm going to make an assumption and say that you may have strong feelings against Fortnite, and maybe feel as though it has wronged other longstanding titles. This may be incorrect, but regardless your statements regarding Fortnite and Epic Games are a bit misleading.

To begin with, comparing Fortnite to what Valve has been doing lately is a bit strange. Valve has recently focused less on being a developement company and more on their platform/marketplace (Steam) which is the primary driver of their success. Valve in the last few years has been for the most part fairly been irrelevant in the game development industry. A more apt comparison would be Epic and Bluehole (which both created the most popular Battle Royales).

You also state that that Fortnite was both a "failure when it first launched" and "what really made it take off was that you didn't have to pay for the game." Fortnite's Co-Op PvE ran an alpha back in 2014[0], and only entered Early Access in 2017[1] (which cost $40). By no metric was it a failure, and comparing the pre-free to play numbers to after it got popular (with a totally different gamemode) is unfair. Fortnite's free to play battle royale gamemode was not a failure and grew extremely quickly after it's release[2].

What made the game popular with its base audience (initially popular with adults and teenagers and only later being picked up by kids) was the fresh and unique take on a new genre (Battle Royale) that was extremely easy to pick up. It definitely wasn't that they could upgrade their character's cosmetics, a option available in basically every multiplayer. Fornite's financial success does come from selling cosmetics, but implying that cosmetics in video games was an idea developed by Valve is laughable. Sales of virtual goods in video games has a very long history[3].

Fortnite popularized (and capitalized on) a fresh genre, which combined with a low barrier to entry, revolutionized the gaming industry and generated immense wealth for Epic, which struck gold with the game. If it wasn't Fortnite, another well made Battle Royale could have easily overtaken the genre in a similar manner. Fortnite was simply in the right place, at the right time, with the right devs. And they've been rewarded handsomely for it.

[0] https://www.polygon.com/2014/12/1/7316937/fortnite-alpha-sig... [1] https://www.vg247.com/2017/07/21/fortnite-early-access-has-s... [2] https://www.epicgames.com/fortnite/en-US/news/postmortem-of-... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_goods#History

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

#254

Post by leetrout »

swebs wrote: post #154
Cu3PO42 wrote: post #46

I think it is commendable that Epic used some of this profit to change their Unreal Engine Marketplace rates in favour of the developers. Similar to their store that is mentioned in the article, the revenue split is now 88/12. This change will be applied retroactively to all past transactions [1]. My understanding is the split was previously 70/30 as common in other online stores—those should be some hefty payouts fo…

>I think it is commendable that Epic used some of this profit to change their Unreal Engine Marketplace rates in favour of the developers Now if only they made the marketplace actually available to developers. There is literally no way for me to buy assets from my Linux workstation. They disabled the ability to buy from their webpage to push people through their launcher, but they refuse to release it on Linux for so…

My workstation is now win 10 to run UE4 and use the marketplace and ubuntu in VMWare for everything on the backend for this very reason.

There are a couple hacks out there to get your assets after you have bought them but you still have to buy them from the windows marketplace.

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

#255

Post by macintux »

nikanj wrote: post #239
rchaud wrote: post #153

The interesting part of this article was that Epic intentionally circumvented Google Play Store and required Android users to download the launcher from its own website. Hopefully this leads to more app developers skipping Google Play and launching solo. Of course most apps won't have the name recognition of Fortnite, but I can't imagine discover-ability inside of the Play Store is any better. I got a new phone recen…

The Apple store is just as bad. I tried finding an app that just takes a photo every n seconds until I press stop. I could find endless pages of apps that claimed to do this - but had 1-star ratings because they couldn't actually do the single thing they were supposed to do. Ugh. I remain pretty convinced that there's an app like this out there, but discovering it is just plain impossible.

I’ve given up on searching the App Store, but I’ve had a lot of luck searching the web. This article looks relevant and useful: https://iphonephotographyschool.com/iphone-time-lapse/

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

#256

Post by Simon_says »

zanny wrote: post #107
munchbunny wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's too bad, but arena shooters have been dying as a category ever since around UT3. I'm hopeful they'll make a resurgence in the future.

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…

> chess isn't as popular as online poker.

Why do you think this?

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

#257

Post by decebalus1 »

Abishek_Muthian wrote: post #245
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…

PUBG has helped me recover from anxiety & panic attacks. Background: I had undergone a major cervical spine fusion surgery to avoid becoming quadriplegic[1] & have been forced to close my startup which I have been running for ~ 5 years. I have been facing anxiety & panic attacks ~ 3 months after surgery. I had decided to try gaming to aid with the recovery from panic attacks & also to monitor the dexterity of my fing…

Pardon the off-topic, but hello, stranger!

So glad I found someone else who also got help from games for their anxiety and panic attacks. I've also undergone some crappy health-related stuff this year and the only thing which I believe pulled me out of it and fixed my crippling anxiety while I recovered was Just Cause 3. I think it was the wingsuit flying coupled with the open-world exploration. It was basically the only activity which could bring my heart rate down to the 60s (It's very counter-intuitive, even for me, how a fast-paced game managed to calm me down) . Not even reading had this effect on me. My friends don't play games and I'm not social at all (twitch, xbox, etc..) so I'm very glad I see someone else in a similar situation.

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

#258

Post by [deleted] »

epicdefense wrote: post #253
makewavesnotwar wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're missing a lot of what contributed to Fortnite's success. Namely their ripping off of pretty much every one of Valve's most lucrative decisions of the past 10 years and in principle - Free to play. Fortnite was pretty much a failure when it first launched. Sure they copied PUBG's last-man-standing game mode, but what really made it take off was that you didn't have to pay for the game. You could get it,…

I'm going to make an assumption and say that you may have strong feelings against Fortnite, and maybe feel as though it has wronged other longstanding titles. This may be incorrect, but regardless your statements regarding Fortnite and Epic Games are a bit misleading. To begin with, comparing Fortnite to what Valve has been doing lately is a bit strange. Valve has recently focused less on being a developement company…

[deleted]

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

#259

Post by bschwindHN »

Abishek_Muthian wrote: post #245
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…

PUBG has helped me recover from anxiety & panic attacks. Background: I had undergone a major cervical spine fusion surgery to avoid becoming quadriplegic[1] & have been forced to close my startup which I have been running for ~ 5 years. I have been facing anxiety & panic attacks ~ 3 months after surgery. I had decided to try gaming to aid with the recovery from panic attacks & also to monitor the dexterity of my fing…

This is really interesting a surprising to read. I play fortnite and I feel like overall it has raised my stress levels a bit. Maybe I need to learn from you and practice being calm, or just get better at the game :)
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