Hangout The Games Hangout Thread

[Jammin]

Ah but I meant outside of the free thing. Seems like most of the exclusive titles they grab have zero crossover with the average Fortnite player.

That would be a funny experience. A casual fortnite player jumping into a complicated rts strategy game. Anything that gets people to try out more than just casual games is a plus in my book, even if they're tricked into it.

But the real fanbase for that game is waiting on steam. Just like always.

 

[Hardy]

The issue there is the way they brute forced there way onto the market was with waiving those royalties and paying out money to get games on their store. So they're paying out money to make all that happen. Which they can afford to do as long as they're making it hand over fist from Fortnite as an investment for the future by establishing a market presence with their store. That would make them stable long term. Problem is I don't think that's really happened.

That money goes away. Suddenly they can't make those deals because they need that money. If they can't make those deals the store tanks because consumer feature-wise it's not competitive.

You are underestimating how much they make with unreal engine. They never released official numbers but it's estimated that it easily makes twice as much as fortnite... And the latest engine has plenty of hype, it's not going anywhere.

 

[Jammin]

You are underestimating how much they make with unreal engine. They never released official numbers but it's estimated that it easily makes twice as much as fortnite... And the latest engine has plenty of hype, it's not going anywhere.

Could be. I don't know their financials. But I know developing gaming engines isn't cheap either though. Keeping Fortnite running is, relatively. So it's lower risk. Running a store is very little risk. Steam doesn't do much at all and makes money hand over fist.

If developing and selling game engines was so profitable you'd think more companies would do it. And they've being doing the game engine thing long before Fortnite. So I'm not sure why now it would suddenly be a huge money maker where it wasn't in the past. Not on the Fortnite level anyway.

 

[Hardy]

Could be. I don't know their financials. But I know developing gaming engines isn't cheap either though. Keeping Fortnite running is, relatively. So it's lower risk. Running a store is very little risk. Steam doesn't do much at all and makes money hand over fist.

If developing and selling game engines was so profitable you'd think more companies would do it. And they've being doing the game engine thing long before Fortnite. So I'm not sure why now it would suddenly be a huge money maker where it wasn't in the past. Not on the Fortnite level anyway.

It's not a risk, they are a established name.

It's very profitable, it's just hard to compete with juggernauts like Unity and Unreal. The companies that don't are AAA that build their own for heir own specific games.

It always was a huge money maker...

 

[Jammin]

It's not a risk, they are a established name.

It's very profitable, it's just hard to compete with juggernauts like Unity and Unreal. The companies that don't are AAA that build their own for heir own specific games.

It always was a huge money maker...

On the level of Fortnite though? I mean, Unreal is not new. Yet Epic being as flush with cash is.

 

[Hardy]

On the level of Fortnite though? I mean, Unreal is not new. Yet Epic being as flush with cash is.

Mate, you can Google these things, icba, haha.

Their valuation is increasing massively and not because of fortnite (whose fanbase has increase by a good margin before the pandemic) but because of the announcement of Unreal 5 (showcased on a PS5, while Sony invested 250 million in them).

 

[xi0]

Mate, you can Google these things, icba, haha.

Their valuation is increasing massively and not because of fortnite (whose fanbase has increase by a good margin before the pandemic) but because of the announcement of Unreal 5 (showcased on a PS5, while Sony invested 250 million in them).

The pure cashflow from Fortnite is a clear factor though. Of course their valuation isn't going to be based on a game that could dwindle numbers in a matter of years, but the fact that they could throw that much money around doesn't necessarily have much to do with how much money the company might be worth in the long term.

 

[Jammin]

Mate, you can Google these things, icba, haha.

Their valuation is increasing massively and not because of fortnite (whose fanbase has increase by a good margin before the pandemic) but because of the announcement of Unreal 5 (showcased on a PS5, while Sony invested 250 million in them).

I didn't want to bother but now I did.

Epic Games was worth 700ish million in 2012 when Tencent bought in. It had Unreal before then. After Fortnite's success in 2018 it was worth like 7 billion. Now it's worth somewhere around 17 billion.

An engine makes a percentage of the revanue that the games made with it makes over a certain threshold. But there aren't as many big games made with a specific engine as you might expect. The actual cost to game makers using the engine is 5% of the revenue. So 5 million dollars out of every hundred million dollars for those titles goes to Epic, basically. That is not as much as you'd think when you look at what's actually made in Unreal, especially when they're refunding that fee for EGS exclusives on PC. In order to make a billion dollars on that they'd need the games in Unreal to bring in 25 billion total. Mathematically that just doesn't make sense with their skyrocket in value does it?

 

[Hardy]

The pure cashflow from Fortnite is a clear factor though. Of course their valuation isn't going to be based on a game that could dwindle numbers in a matter of years, but the fact that they could throw that much money around doesn't necessarily have much to do with how much money the company might be worth in the long term.

Oh, for sure. The success of Fortnite was certainly out of their plans, and they were quick to put that money somewhere.

They are scum but great at business, kinda goes hand in hand I guess lol

--- Double Post Merged, Aug 15, 2020, Original Post Date: Aug 15, 2020 ---

I didn't want to bother but now I did.

Epic Games was worth 700ish million in 2012 when Tencent bought in. It had Unreal before then. After Fortnite's success in 2018 it was worth like 7 billion. Now it's worth somewhere around 17 billion.

An engine makes a percentage of the revanue that the games made with it makes over a certain threshold. But there aren't as many big games made with a specific engine as you might expect. The actual cost 5% of the revenue. So 5 million dollars out of every hundred million dollars for those titles goes to Epic, basically. That is not as much as you'd think when you look at what's actually made in Unreal. In order to make a billion dollars on that they'd need the games in Unreal to bring in 25 billion total. Mathematically that just doesn't make sense with they're skyrocket in value does it?

It does, because it's valuation, not immediate worth.

Like I said, it has more to do with them working on a new engine and China entering the business hardcore. It's a type of media that is growing more than ever before and so is the price of makinggames. Fortnite was huge for them, I never said it wasn't, but they are bigger than the game.

--- Double Post Merged, Aug 15, 2020 ---

Jamming that's a fuck ton of successful games lmao

 

[Jammin]

Oh, for sure. The success of Fortnite was certainly out of their plans, and they were quick to put that money somewhere.

They are scum but great at business, kinda goes hand in hand I guess lol

--- Double Post Merged, Aug 15, 2020, Original Post Date: Aug 15, 2020 ---

It does, because it's valuation, not immediate worth.

Like I said, it has more to do with them working on a new engine and China entering the business hardcore. It's a type of media that is growing more than ever before and so is the price of makinggames. Fortnite was huge for them, I never said it wasn't, but they are bigger than the game.

--- Double Post Merged, Aug 15, 2020 ---

Jamming that's a fuck ton of successful games lmao

Ok, so they're revenue is forecast to be 5 billion. How much of that could possibly be coming from the engine royalties?

How successful is that list at 5% though? Not everything is on that list obviously but that's most of the big ones. Borderlands 3 is the biggest recent name there right? They were Epic exclusive so they didn't get a cut but if they did it would have been 25 million maybe? Assuming it made 500 million, I'm not sure how much they make so it's hard to guess that. Something around that maybe. I'm not sure what engine development costs but I assume it's at or above the cost of game development.

It certainly could be profitable. But the big games use proprietary engines. The GTA's. The Call of Duty's. Ubisoft games. Playstation games. Bethesda games. Nintendo games. CD Projekt. Even like Larian and Hardsuit Labs. So basically it's reliant on mid or high end studios that don't have an in house toolset making hugely successful games.

Yeah, I really have a hard time believing royalties are equivant to Fortnite. I know that they have things other than Fortnite. EGS for one. Some kind of social media thing too right? But they're not making Fortnite money without Fortnite. And without that money I don't think they'd be so aggressive in other places.

--- Double Post Merged, Aug 20, 2020 ---

First real red flags came up for Bloodlines 2 yesterday. They fired their lead writer and creative director.

The Bloodlines fans on the internet seem to be understandably spooked by this. Since Brain Mitsoda was sort of the strongest link to Bloodlines one. And losing a creative director never looks good. No word for why they made those moves either. The delay to next year wasn't something that concerned me, this does.

I'm not as doomsday as some fans seem to be. There are a lot of legitimate reasons they'd want to move another direction. It's just not a good look. Especially with them bringing in a former Ubisoft guy to step in at creative director. Given how a bloodlines style RPG is like the opposite of an Ubisoft game. That doesn't make me feel good.

 

[Sky]

So after the awesomeness that is Ghost of Tsushima, I started to play the Fairy Tail game and boy is it... simple.
Don't get me wrong, the visuals are nice and the RPG-style fits the series really well but the development is so lazy paired with utterly disgusting prices for DLC content.
When even characters like the princess of Fiore or Meredy don't get a 3D character model, you know that the company just wanted to make a quick dollar.

 

[Ramen]

Bleach Bare Souls on steam? Sign me up!!

 

[Sanity Check]

This is one of the most stereotypically "manga/anime" styled games I've ever come across.

 

[Ramen]

Back into Smite. Feels good to play the game again.

 

[Faust]

 

[xnut]

Epic is a virus to PC gamers, giving free games and paying for some titles to steal your information isn't worth it for me. Anybody play dead by daylight?

 

[Jammin]

Nope. I'm playing Baldur's Gate 3 and Squadrons right now.

Larian has done such a good job with Baldur's Gate. It's not done yet obviously, early access and all that. And it very much is that. So I feel like the smart move for most people is to wait until it's further along. What's there though feels like the new X-Com versus the old X-Com. Everything that they've done with the game feels like an improvement to me. The only thing I'd call a complaint is that parts of the game just aren't in there right now, it is true early access. Like there are a lot of classes and subclasses that aren't in there yet. Most noticeably the Paladin, the Druid, the Sorcerer, the Barbarian, and the Monk. The character customization is also a bit limited at the moment. But this is definitely going to be a game to look forward to.

Squadrons is pretty good. It's the first EA game I've bought or played in a while. And it's very fun. Arcade-y but with a very high skill ceiling and a lot of neat mechanics to learn. For the first time in quite a while EA made a game I think is actually worth playing.

--- Double Post Merged, Oct 20, 2020, Original Post Date: Oct 18, 2020 ---

Second big red flag came out for Bloodlines 2 today. They "parted ways" with their senior narrative designer Cara Ellison.

So that's the lead writer, the creative director, and now senior narrative designer now. That's a lot of turnover for a project that's going well. Which is somewhat concerning.

 

[Sanity Check]

Vanquish was on steam sale for $5 dollah.

Trying it out now.

--- Double Post Merged, Nov 10, 2020, Original Post Date: Oct 20, 2020 ---

November is national novel writing month aka nanowrimo.

Its also the month when itch.io holds its annual game jam.

Game Off 2020

A game jam from 2020-11-01 to 2020-12-22 hosted by GitHub & Lee Reilly. This year's GitHub Game Off is over. You can view some of the top-rated games as voted on by the developers themselves here . Game Off is an annual ga...

itch.io

 

[xnut]

game looks sick

 

[Rica_Patin]

I just got an Xbox Series S after having skipped the previous generation and I absolutely love it.
Was so happy to see a large amount of my 360 digital collection still available for download and Gamepass is absolutely the coolest thing ever and what actually convinced me to buy the system.

Gamertag is Baphstrakt, but I tend to play more single-player games than multiplayer.