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Nirolak · Mar 27, 2014

Assuming this quote means what I think it means (that they're making f2p service games, and by "Valve" he means "Dota 2/TF2" and not Portal), this would line up with what Tim Sweeney has been implying for a few years now along with the shift away from things like Gears.

Polygon said:
"We're building Fortnite, which is a bigger and way cooler game than we imagined," Sweeney said. "It started out as an internal game jam project at Epic and has grown over time. We have a combination of a great building game, an action-combat game and with some [light] elements of an MMO. We'll be saying more about that in the coming months."

Sweeney called Fortnite a game that will be shaped and improved over time in response to its players' feedback. It's also a game that represents something of a new direction for Epic.

"We're looking at the future of gaming from kind of a Valve or Riot point of view," Sweeney said, "[which is] making your games really accessible, being fair to customers and giving them a great value with a game that can be played for hundreds or thousands of hours.

Sweeney said a team of more than 90 at Epic are building Fortnite, which he praised as an "awesome, high-quality game," and that others at Epic are developing unannounced projects.

"We've gone through a long process of figuring out the games we're going to build at Epic worldwide in the future and we concluded that we weren't going to be building any more Gears of War," Sweeney said. "As much as we love the game, we're heading in a new direction.

"The core Gears values are really tied to being big event-based, single-player console games with awesome cover mechanics and other things that really didn't translate into the future approach we were taking with online games, and competitive and cooperative multiplayer. Because we weren't planning on building any more Gears games we were just going to let that sit on the shelf for a decade or more, in case it had any future value to us."

"We're also in the early development stages of a game that will continue the Epic tradition of pushing high-end, leading-edge graphics," he said. "We're working very close with Nvidia on new features and capabilities to bring things to the next level.

"We won't be announcing that [game] for a long time but we're continuing to be at the forefront [of graphics technology]."

Source: http://www.polygon.com/2014/3/26/55...-games-tim-sweeney-fortnite-unreal-tournament

BladeoftheImmortal · Mar 27, 2014

So they'll never finish.

ZackieChan · Mar 27, 2014

It's a brave new world. Not sure if want...

nbnt · Mar 27, 2014

"Chair is continuing their tradition of building cool mobile games," Sweeney said. "They're working on something that's really awesome and really new. More details will be coming much later."

Sigh.

Ikuu · Mar 27, 2014

BladeoftheImmortal said:
So they'll never finish.

Valve have released a game every year for the past 10 years.

Archpath1 · Mar 27, 2014

Damn.
Has there been any new footage recently?
I like to see some progression

Nirolak · Mar 27, 2014

Archpath1 said:
Damn.
Has there been any new footage recently?
I like to see some progression

He mentions in the article that it will be shown within the next couple of months.

Daedardus · Mar 27, 2014

And I thought they were becoming more like Unity.

VindicatorZ · Mar 27, 2014

Aren't they working on a new shooter game? I'm eager to see their true Unreal Engine 4 game. It's sure to be a next gen showcase.

Maybe at E3?

nampad · Mar 27, 2014

Guess Tencent is happy about that new direction?

Nirolak · Mar 27, 2014

VindicatorZ said:
Aren't they working on a new shooter game? I'm eager to see their true Unreal Engine 4 game. It's sure to be a next gen showcase.

Maybe at E3?

Yes, but he notes "We won't be announcing that [game] for a long time...".

Des0lar · Mar 27, 2014

More the Valve, less the Riot approach, thanks

Acidote · Mar 27, 2014

Completely unsurprising. Tencent.

I'm sure it will be more like Riot than Valve.

Vinterbird · Mar 27, 2014

Daedardus said:
And I thought they were becoming more like Unity.

Unity is also working on their own games.

Marvel · Mar 27, 2014

Can't say I'm excited...

fresquito · Mar 27, 2014

Riot fair? I thought LoL had you purchasing individual heroes. How is that even close to fair to the player?

Nirolak · Mar 27, 2014

nampad said:
Guess Tencent is happy about that new direction?

Acidote said:
Completely unsurprising. Tencent.

I'm sure it will be more like Riot than Valve.

Right, I'm pretty sure they went to Tencent because they were the best fit for the new direction they were going to head, and then Tencent bought in because they agreed.

Notably they also mentioned recently they will be self publishing all their own games, which if you're making f2p titles, makes perfect sense.

2San · Mar 27, 2014

Nirolak said:
Right, I'm pretty sure they went to Tencent because they were the best fit for the new direction they were going to head, and then Tencent bought in because they agreed.

You sure it wasn't the buckets full of cash?

Nervous Sausage · Mar 27, 2014

Des0lar said:
More the Valve, less the Riot approach, thanks

Yes please. Interested in Fortnite, but would be less so if there were microtransactions on anything non cosmetic.

Nirolak · Mar 27, 2014

2San said:
You sure it wasn't the buckets full of cash?

Well yes, but they could get that from a lot of companies.

Generally you pick the specific company you go with based on them being a good fit.

Like id software had acquisition offers from about four or more companies, but went with ZeniMax because they felt at ZeniMax their games would be "the big shooter" at the company instead of "the other shooter".

JordanN · Mar 27, 2014

So that's why the guy has a cone on his head. They're trying out hats.

Acidote · Mar 27, 2014

Nirolak said:
Right, I'm pretty sure they went to Tencent because they were the best fit for the new direction they were going to head, and then Tencent bought in because they agreed.

Notably they also mentioned recently they will be self publishing all their own games, which if you're making f2p titles, makes perfect sense.

I'm sure they won't be the only ones transitioning to this model in a short frame. That constant stream of income is better for most companies than taking a big gamble every 3 years.

maneil99 · Mar 27, 2014

Ikuu said:
Valve have released a game every year for the past 10 years.

What did they release last year? CSGO wasn't made by them

Nirolak · Mar 27, 2014

maneil99 said:
What did they release last year? CSGO wasn't made by them

Dota 2's official release.

2San · Mar 27, 2014

Nirolak said:
Well yes, but they could get that from a lot of companies.

Generally you pick the specific company you go with based on them being a good fit.

Like id software had acquisition offers from about four or more companies, but went with ZeniMax because they felt at ZeniMax their games would be "the big shooter" at the company instead of "the other shooter".

Ok that's fair enough.

Hopefully this all translates to a good game.

maneil99 · Mar 27, 2014

Nirolak said:
Dota 2's official release.

What about 2012?

Nirolak · Mar 27, 2014

maneil99 said:
What about 2012?

Well, if you for some reason want to discount a game they published as "a game they released", then nothing.

monome · Mar 27, 2014

Epic's "Crysis" incoming?

Should melt eyes if it's built around PC specs from 2/3 years hence...

BladeoftheImmortal · Mar 27, 2014

Ikuu said:
Valve have released a game every year for the past 10 years.

Call me when episode 3 makes it out in those 10 years.

exmachina64 · Mar 27, 2014

BladeoftheImmortal said:
Call me when episode 3 makes it out in those 10 years.

Well we're talking about the past ten years so unless time travel takes off...

Nirolak · Mar 27, 2014

BladeoftheImmortal said:
Call me when episode 3 makes it out in those 10 years.

I don't think it takes miraculous insight to look at what Valve has been releasing recently and realize that they took the same shift Epic is talking about here, but instead of selling off Half-Life to another company, they just shoved it extremely far back on the backburner.

maneil99 · Mar 27, 2014

Nvidia should publish pc exclusive games. Oh mods please unjunior me.

Game Guru · Mar 27, 2014

I suspect it will be more akin to the Riot Games model since Tencent owns them and invested in Epic.

Zarx · Mar 27, 2014

not surprising, given all that has happened. Explains the exodus of design talent.

Kreunt · Mar 27, 2014

I forgot this project even existed.

fresquito · Mar 27, 2014

maneil99 said:
What did they release last year? CSGO wasn't made by them

DOTA2

Des0lar · Mar 27, 2014

Are we starting the stupid

"Valve hasn't released any games!"

-> gets proven wrong

"Not the games I waaaaant"

troushers · Mar 27, 2014

Don't feel like the future is too bright for these guys.

EdwardTivrusky · Mar 27, 2014

troushers said:
Don't feel like the future is too bright for these guys.

I'm sure the future is very bright for them, it's just not a future i'll be joining them in probably.

ashecitism · Mar 27, 2014

Yeah, when at the G-Sync reveal he said it's going to be a PC focused game, I figured as much.

Btw does LoL has UGC on the level of Valve games?

maneil99 said:
What did they release last year? CSGO wasn't made by them

Yeah, it was a joint-production with HP, but at this point it really doesn't matter. Since the official release Valve have completely taken over GO and moved to a service type model, and thanks to the constant updates a once red headed stepchild has become the #2 game on Steam.

Nirolak said:
I don't think it takes miraculous insight to look at what Valve has been releasing recently and realize that they took the same shift Epic is talking about here, but instead of selling off Half-Life to another company, they just shoved it extremely far back on the backburner.

So, what do you think L4D3 is going to look like? I made a thread about monetization and competitive (since it's such a focus with Dota and CS) expectations. Want to chime in?

-PXG- · Mar 27, 2014

If they're going towards the free to play/ MOBA route, them I'm out. Not interested in any of that nickel and diming nonsense.

Gimme something like Samaritan or Infiltrator.

MutonCommander · Mar 27, 2014

It seems that the days of the big single player triple-A game are well and truly over. We'll still have our GTAs and our Skyrims but they will be few and far between.

Nirolak · Mar 27, 2014

-PXG- said:
If they're going towards the free to play/ MOBA route, them I'm out. Not interested in any of that nickel and diming nonsense.

Gimme something like Samaritan or Infiltrator.

You will probably get something like Infiltrator that is also f2p, but on consoles as well.

Nokterian · Mar 27, 2014

Epic still making games? That's news to me.

mrpeabody · Mar 27, 2014

-PXG- said:
If they're going towards the free to play/ MOBA route, them I'm out. Not interested in any of that nickel and diming nonsense.

Gimme something like Samaritan or Infiltrator.

It will absolutely be free to play. "Accessible, good value, Valve/Riot" is code for "F2P with a lot of free content up front".

It's not a MOBA, or at least wasn't the last time we saw it. "Competitive and cooperative"...asymmetrical team-based multi like L4D?

astonish · Mar 27, 2014

Why everyone thought they stopped making games is beyond me. Yes Cliff left, Yes Rod left, but thats really it from what I can tell. Many of the great artists and technical staff remained and they even hired a bunch of great folks like Tim Lottes (FXAA inventor) and such. I think I remember Cliff mentioning before he left that he felt like some of the designers below him deserved to be making their own games and that the studio was working to open up to allow more projects like that.

In many ways until last weeks announcement I thought UE4 would have less of an impact on this gen than last with EA/Ubi all going fully internal. Thats obviously changed with the new UE4 structure, but you still see Epic needing to make games to generate income.

Wiktor · Mar 28, 2014

Neither Riot or Valve is making anything that interests me anymore, so I'm sad that Epic will join them. So many good devs lost to F2P grind

SwiftDeath · Mar 28, 2014

That's cool I guess. Not interested in the slightest but they gotta do what they gotta do

JaseC · Mar 28, 2014

AdrianWerner said:
Neither Riot or Valve is making anything that interests me anymore, so I'm sad that Epic will join them. So many good devs lost to F2P grind

Thanks to last year's JIRA leaks we know that Valve is working on L4D3 and HL3, although much to the chagrin of Half-Life fans we can infer that the former is further along than the latter and is presumably Valve's next big release.

Sciz · Mar 28, 2014

90 people on Fortnite? Yipes. No wonder that went dark, the design document must've blown up somewhere along the line.

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Epic moving to Valve/Riot-like game approach, has 90+ people on Fortnite

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