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 massive coffers to continue working on Unreal 4. Couldn't have worked out better.
While I agree that PUBG is a dumpster heap technically, it really is a legitimately fun game. I enjoy it much more than Fortnite, and if it performed halfway decently it would be one of my favorite games of all time. I think Fortnite's success is great and it is very clear why it is more popular than PUBG could have ever hoped to be, but I will always be partial to the slow, suffocating, horror of feeling alone in that giant world. Not seeing someone for 10 minutes, but always wondering who is around the next corner is thrilling to me and it's something that Fortnite intentionally lacks.
I'd like to add gun mechanics. PUBG has the best gunplay I've ever played. For me PUBG fights are thrilling, like I was there getting shot at, while Fortnite's (or any other game for that matter) are plain old arcadey. I dislike the building mechanic too.
I'd genuinely love for a developer to step up and do a better milsim BR but so far PUBG is king in that niche.
PUBG was a truly unique gaming experience. It’s just a shame that they were so slow to rollout maps and make basic mechanical changes early enough. I got oversaturated and haven’t played it in about a year. Just can’t dedicate 15 mins on a single match to die from technical shortcomings.
As a big fan of Fortnite I was ready to disagree with you but that's actually spot on. There is a massive difference in the pacing of the two games, and there are audiences for both.
I play PUBG Mobile, so slightly different to PUBG on Desktop. It is free, and it is fun. And it is one of those rare games you can finish the match in 5 - 10 min times when you are in Arcade Mode. There is no grind, no VIP system, No Pay to win. I actually brought a few items in App because I thought I was enjoying it so much and not paying for it.
I hope Fortnite and PUBG will finally wake Apple up, I mean even Phill Schiller is playing Fortnite [1]. Gaming is driving the PC sales, Mac needs to take notes.
Yeah, a lot of it really comes down to personal preference. PUBG, H1Z1, Fortnite, Blackout, CS:GO... gameplay wise they all have significant differences.
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 fingers. I looked for multiplayer TPS games with some realism & accurate weapon mechanics. Fortnite was too colourful & lacked realistic maps (IMO); so I chose PUBG.
Initial game sessions made my anxiety worse, especially when a sniper takes you out (or) the impending threat of it. After several sessions, I've learnt to be calm & have improved my tactics.
I can definitely say that playing PUBG has definitely helped me recover from my anxiety & panic attacks. Of-course, this might have been the case even if I had played other games including Fornite; but as I said PUBG served my needs.
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.
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 :)
PUBG is a technical mess (but getting better). However, it's a marvel of game design, especially if you've spent more than a few hundred hours playing. The design of the new map (Vikendi) is insanely good (save for a few issues with loot spawning) — in size, topography, speed, etc.
They've been able to capture the realistic military style sim, but without the massive player overhead required to learn and be good at those games. The gun mechanics are some of, if not the best I've ever played.
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, play it, and then upgrade or not upgrade your character as you desired. This is what made it so wildly popular with its base audience of 7-15 year olds. They can't drive, they don't have money, they might have hyper controlling parents that won't let them go out and be proper kids, but if they have a desktop and a reliable internet connection, they can be a part of this game. That's a big selling point for kids. Not to mention if they watch Twitch/Youtube, it would appear to be a potential career path for them to sit on their ass consuming content in an interesting way as they see people like Ninja and Muselk getting rich.
As for Fortnite's financial success, again I think this comes down to them ripping off Valve - principally Team Fortress 2. When Valve made the game free to play in 2011, they added other monetization mechanisms like premium cosmetics and taunts. This is exactly how Fortnite has become so huge.
Instead of having major entrance barriers like having to own a console or forking over $60 - $100 for a game. You can get it for free and maybe pay a few bucks here or there when it suits you. And parents love it because it gives them a passive way to control their kids at little to no cost. (Unless their the absurd type of people who pay for Fortnite tutors)
Not that Gabe Newell or Valve need the money, but Epic has ripped off almost everything from other games for Fortnite. With their massive budget they're basically like Facebook in that they can steal any concept to be produced in house and fight legal battles as necessary. And I think their success compared to what they've ripped off is largely a matter of timing with the rise of services like Twitch, Youtube and Discord than anything specific to their IP.
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 house, but because in some ways they are a social network. It’s as much as a game as a platform to hang out with your friends and chill.
Awesome comment! One thing I have problem with is that you keep saying "ripping off" or "steal". There really shouldn't be any shame in taking 2 existing good ideas and using them to make something better, something widely successful.
TF2 or PUBG could've done this but didn't, fortnite did, and nailed it, and now we all get to benefit.
One thing I'm glad they didn't "rip off" from Team Fortress 2 are the gambling loot boxes where you pay $2 for one try which has a 0.02% chance of netting you a $1500 item.
What’s your point? Fortnite combines elements from many other games and you call this a ripoff? This is how "art" is created in many cases. F2P has been around for a long time, so what?
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.
The issue with Dayz, H1Z1 and PUBG was that they were made by developers that 1. knew very little about engine optimizations and 2. rushed to add features as quickly as possible with no foresight.
This lead to all 3 games being laggy, which is quite bad for a shooter. It also lead to the pace of development slowing down to a crawl after a few months, which I assume was due to their spaghetti code being hard to work with.
Epic at least has experience with game engines and development, and have managed to keep up the pace and performance.
Pubg has a lot of genius to it that people don’t notice because the implementation was buggy. If you play the game a lot you start to appreciate how good the gunplay is, the weapon balance, the layout of the maps. Every building and bush is carefully considered. Ever notice a tree branch often obscures a window you want to peek? No accident!
That's just good production values that most AAA shooters like CoD and Battlefield have. AAA studios can iterate, hire top talent and do a lot of QA testing, so naturally elements like gunplay, weapon balance and map design can be top notch.
I think the genius in PUBG can be found more in seeing the opportunity of creating a standalone realistic Battle Royale shooter at the right time.
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 game which ruins the gameplay for me.
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.
> PUBG - an unqualified mess from a subpar developer
Wow, you're bitter. Are you talking about Brendan Greene or Chang-han Kim?
They wanted to get the game out quickly and with a low budget, and they achieved just that! It's strange to be dissing individual creators of a very successful product in comparison to a big company like Epic games.
> "Gamers deserve better"? What is that supposed to mean?
It means they deserve better than all the garbage that's been pushed out over the last 5 years or so since Unity and Unreal became free, and Steam relaxed its submission standards. There's been a massive wave of terrible "games" that people are just forced to accept because they don't know any better.
I'm not hating on indie game devs in general, there are of course plenty of amazing ones. But the real problem is this trend of a small group of devs forming a "studio", coming up with really ambitious plans for a huge game after learning Unity for a month, and then releasing early access garbage like PUBG and abandoning it when they realize making a triple-A game takes years of effort by a vast team of expert professionals.
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.
After Unreal Tournament 3 and Unreal Tournament 4 ( still pre-alpha) you could probably extend that 'dire' 'office environment..' to quite a few years.
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 for some developers.
In my opinion this is going above and beyond and would make me feel good about supporting Epic through purchase of cosmetics in Fortnite if I played the game, for example.
EDIT: I previously mistakenly referred to the UE Marketplace as store, which is now at best misleading since they did launch a proper game store last month. Thanks to jsnell for catching this.
>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 some reason. I guess they don't mind the missed sales? It's pretty much the reason why I ditched it for Unity.
Eh, that move is definitely nice for developers, but it's still self-serving. They're in an uphill battle against steam's moat, and increasing rates is a way of attracting more developers.
The UE Marketplace is targeted at developers only and sells assets and such for use in UE games. I was not aware that Steam is competing in that area at all and a cursory search didn't yield any such results.
Of course other marketplaces selling assets exist, but I am not aware that one has a dominant market position that Epic are trying hard to surpass. Please do let me know if that is, in fact, the case.
Or are you implying that better rates in the Marketplace will also make it more likely for developers to publish their games on the Epic Store (disregarding the better rates there)?
Sure, but even going to 25 or 20 percent would have been big. To go all the way down to 12% is absurd (though as a game dev I'm certainly not complaining!)
I'm confused, Epic just launched their store this month. What games are these "previous transactions" for? Do you have a specific list of games that sold with the previous 70/30 cut, and for how long?
EDIT: From what I remember, the only games on the Epic launcher were Unreal Tournament, Paragon, Fortnite and Shadow Complex.
The OP was talking about the Unreal Engine Marketplace (for selling game assets to developers), not about the Epic Games store (for selling finished games to players).
I see the source of your confusion though, since the article was never talking about the UE Marketplace.
Of course they loose some money on the gift cards, but I highly doubt it's anywhere close to 18% of the value for most retailers. I was not able to find a public source on any numbers here, but I asked a friend working at a large 8-letter games store and he mentioned figures in the range of 5%.
Furthermore I am not speaking of the recently launched game store, but the UE Marketplace that sells assets targeted at developers.
As mentioned in a reply to a sibling of yours, I am not aware that Steam or other large game distribution platforms are competing in this market.
Hence I am not sure why their rates are relevant here.
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 recently and had to re-download some apps; Imagine my shock when I opened Google Play and saw that it had become like Google search; crawling with ads for some of the worst, lowest-rung "apps", all of which appear to be some variant of Candy Crush and Clash of Clans. Who honestly wants to fork over 30% to Google for that?
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.
Shame none of that is going towards UT development and Epic scrapped that project. Considering the state of the new Quake game I guess that's the end for Arena shooters.
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 or luck to make you feel you are better than you are - just your own ability. The later is reflected in the former, in how complex interations and difficulty make watching really skillful games harder because there is so much to account for deterministically.
Thats what gravitates people towards randomness in games, where skill is taken out of the equation. Then you don't have to practice or actually "be good", you could just get lucky, and thats enough for most people - they aren't looking for challenges in their games, just dopamine kicks, and we are wired enough to get similar effects to chance we get to perseverance and the former doesn't require the hard work.
Arena shooters are alive and thriving. Quake Champions Doom Edition[1] is a miracle mod that is incredible to see and play knowing its running on what started as the first breakout PC shooter of all time. But its not a commercial product. Its a fan game. But its just as good, or better, than what almost any big budget arena shooter could offer, because they are not about spectacle at all, they are about the tightness and responsiveness of the gameplay.
I thought Quake Champions would be the best chance for the genre to be revived. With how popular LoL and DotA and Overwatch are, it seemed like a mix of the traditional arena shooter with special abilities/spells would be a good way to attract that audience. It hasn't. Maybe because Bethesda's efforts still lean too heavily on traditional Quake and they're unwilling to really embrace the RPG/ability aspect of MOBAs. Unfortunately, so many developers have tried and failed to make a "modern" arena shooter that I don't see anybody else giving it an interesting, worthy take on a hybrid.
Is anybody else bummed how Fortnite's success has drawn development away from the new Unreal Tournament? I don't care about Fortnite, I just want UT to continue to be updated. I don't think it's had an update since June.
Epic lied to Linux devs and stabbed us in the back. I have abandoned hundreds in marketplace assets and moved to godot because of all that money and still a refusal to address Linux as a platform for dev and shipping.
I see several people complain about Linux limitations in this thread. What are the Linux limitations exactly? A) Unreal dev tools can't be used on Linux, B) Unreal dev tools can't be used to purchase marketplace assets on Linux, C) Unreal dev tools can't use marketplace assets on Linux even if you previously bought them on Windows, D) Unreal dev tools on Windows can't make a Linux build if it uses marketplace assets.
Tim Sweeney often complains about MS being a threat to PC gaming, yet there is still no Fortnite for Linux. Also, Epic store doesn't support Linux (yet?).
I mean come on, it has got to be a business decision. If Gamers were there, they would have made it. How much investment do you expect them to make when only 1% of the world wide Desktop uses linux and possibly less than 10% of that 1% are gamers?
I mean Mac Gamers don't complain as much when they have higher market shares.
If he is so threatened, his business decision should be to do something about it. Valve did, and push Linux gaming quit a lot. Epic do it very lazily. Good thing their Unreal engine works on Linux, but they didn't put a lot of effort in it. Lot's was done by third party and community developers to make it work.
Readit News
I'd genuinely love for a developer to step up and do a better milsim BR but so far PUBG is king in that niche.
I hope Fortnite and PUBG will finally wake Apple up, I mean even Phill Schiller is playing Fortnite [1]. Gaming is driving the PC sales, Mac needs to take notes.
[1] https://twitter.com/pschiller/status/1077319181027004417
Deleted Comment
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 fingers. I looked for multiplayer TPS games with some realism & accurate weapon mechanics. Fortnite was too colourful & lacked realistic maps (IMO); so I chose PUBG.
Initial game sessions made my anxiety worse, especially when a sniper takes you out (or) the impending threat of it. After several sessions, I've learnt to be calm & have improved my tactics.
I can definitely say that playing PUBG has definitely helped me recover from my anxiety & panic attacks. Of-course, this might have been the case even if I had played other games including Fornite; but as I said PUBG served my needs.
[1]: https://abishekmuthian.com/i-was-told-i-would-become-quadrip...
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.
They've been able to capture the realistic military style sim, but without the massive player overhead required to learn and be good at those games. The gun mechanics are some of, if not the best I've ever played.
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, play it, and then upgrade or not upgrade your character as you desired. This is what made it so wildly popular with its base audience of 7-15 year olds. They can't drive, they don't have money, they might have hyper controlling parents that won't let them go out and be proper kids, but if they have a desktop and a reliable internet connection, they can be a part of this game. That's a big selling point for kids. Not to mention if they watch Twitch/Youtube, it would appear to be a potential career path for them to sit on their ass consuming content in an interesting way as they see people like Ninja and Muselk getting rich.
As for Fortnite's financial success, again I think this comes down to them ripping off Valve - principally Team Fortress 2. When Valve made the game free to play in 2011, they added other monetization mechanisms like premium cosmetics and taunts. This is exactly how Fortnite has become so huge.
Instead of having major entrance barriers like having to own a console or forking over $60 - $100 for a game. You can get it for free and maybe pay a few bucks here or there when it suits you. And parents love it because it gives them a passive way to control their kids at little to no cost. (Unless their the absurd type of people who pay for Fortnite tutors)
Not that Gabe Newell or Valve need the money, but Epic has ripped off almost everything from other games for Fortnite. With their massive budget they're basically like Facebook in that they can steal any concept to be produced in house and fight legal battles as necessary. And I think their success compared to what they've ripped off is largely a matter of timing with the rise of services like Twitch, Youtube and Discord than anything specific to their IP.
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 house, but because in some ways they are a social network. It’s as much as a game as a platform to hang out with your friends and chill.
TF2 or PUBG could've done this but didn't, fortnite did, and nailed it, and now we all get to benefit.
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
This lead to all 3 games being laggy, which is quite bad for a shooter. It also lead to the pace of development slowing down to a crawl after a few months, which I assume was due to their spaghetti code being hard to work with.
Epic at least has experience with game engines and development, and have managed to keep up the pace and performance.
See you on Vikendi. Bring your snow jacket.
I think the genius in PUBG can be found more in seeing the opportunity of creating a standalone realistic Battle Royale shooter at the right time.
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...
Wow, you're bitter. Are you talking about Brendan Greene or Chang-han Kim? They wanted to get the game out quickly and with a low budget, and they achieved just that! It's strange to be dissing individual creators of a very successful product in comparison to a big company like Epic games.
It means they deserve better than all the garbage that's been pushed out over the last 5 years or so since Unity and Unreal became free, and Steam relaxed its submission standards. There's been a massive wave of terrible "games" that people are just forced to accept because they don't know any better.
I'm not hating on indie game devs in general, there are of course plenty of amazing ones. But the real problem is this trend of a small group of devs forming a "studio", coming up with really ambitious plans for a huge game after learning Unity for a month, and then releasing early access garbage like PUBG and abandoning it when they realize making a triple-A game takes years of effort by a vast team of expert professionals.
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.
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 for some developers. In my opinion this is going above and beyond and would make me feel good about supporting Epic through purchase of cosmetics in Fortnite if I played the game, for example.
EDIT: I previously mistakenly referred to the UE Marketplace as store, which is now at best misleading since they did launch a proper game store last month. Thanks to jsnell for catching this.
[1] https://www.unrealengine.com/en-US/blog/epic-announces-unrea...
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 some reason. I guess they don't mind the missed sales? It's pretty much the reason why I ditched it for Unity.
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.
Of course other marketplaces selling assets exist, but I am not aware that one has a dominant market position that Epic are trying hard to surpass. Please do let me know if that is, in fact, the case.
Or are you implying that better rates in the Marketplace will also make it more likely for developers to publish their games on the Epic Store (disregarding the better rates there)?
EDIT: From what I remember, the only games on the Epic launcher were Unreal Tournament, Paragon, Fortnite and Shadow Complex.
I see the source of your confusion though, since the article was never talking about the UE Marketplace.
Furthermore I am not speaking of the recently launched game store, but the UE Marketplace that sells assets targeted at developers. As mentioned in a reply to a sibling of yours, I am not aware that Steam or other large game distribution platforms are competing in this market. Hence I am not sure why their rates are relevant here.
I got a new phone recently and had to re-download some apps; Imagine my shock when I opened Google Play and saw that it had become like Google search; crawling with ads for some of the worst, lowest-rung "apps", all of which appear to be some variant of Candy Crush and Clash of Clans. Who honestly wants to fork over 30% to Google for that?
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.
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.
Thats what gravitates people towards randomness in games, where skill is taken out of the equation. Then you don't have to practice or actually "be good", you could just get lucky, and thats enough for most people - they aren't looking for challenges in their games, just dopamine kicks, and we are wired enough to get similar effects to chance we get to perseverance and the former doesn't require the hard work.
Arena shooters are alive and thriving. Quake Champions Doom Edition[1] is a miracle mod that is incredible to see and play knowing its running on what started as the first breakout PC shooter of all time. But its not a commercial product. Its a fan game. But its just as good, or better, than what almost any big budget arena shooter could offer, because they are not about spectacle at all, they are about the tightness and responsiveness of the gameplay.
[1] https://www.moddb.com/mods/quake-champions-doom-edition
https://www.digitaltrends.com/gaming/development-stopped-unr...
I mean Mac Gamers don't complain as much when they have higher market shares.