Tag: Epic

Tim Sweeney: Tencent Not A Parent Company, Offline Mode Coming 2019


Epic Founder Tim Sweeney took to Reddit last week to clarify a few things regarding the Epic Store and what role Tencent has to play in it. The original poster in the thread laid down a number of accusations against Epic and Ubisoft, among others, over questionable practices. Included in the list was the allegation that Epic is collecting data to hand over to its “parent company” Tencent and thus the Chinese government.

“Their TOS states they have the right to monitor you and send the data to their parent company. And who is Epic’s parent company? The Chinese dev that’s known for spying for the Chinese government. Tencent. The same Tencent who’s working hand in hand with the Chinese Government to work on tools to spy on their own citizens. Escentially Epic Games is owned by the Chinese Government.”

Sweeney showed up later in the comments to refute that Tencent is a parent company, as Sweeney himself is the controlling shareholder. Tencent owns a minority investment in Epic Games and does not have access to any customer data. He posted in the same thread responding to a user asking if the Epic store will have an offline mode, confirming that it will be released in “early 2019” for games that are playable offline.

Comment from discussion Ubisoft needs to stop with this Always Online bullshit; Epic Games Store is literal Spyware and worse..

https://www.redditstatic.com/comment-embed.js

Source: Reddit

Discord To Allow Self-Publishing AND 90/10 Revenue Split


If you thought Epic Games offering an 88/12 split along with a curated store was the pinnacle of digital distribution, think again. Discord today announced that as of 2019, not only will their service serve as a self-publishing platform where any developer can place their game, but that developers will enjoy a 90% revenue share to sweeten the deal.

So, starting in 2019, we are going to extend access to the Discord store and our extremely efficient game patcher by releasing a self-serve game publishing platform. No matter what size, from AAA to single person teams, developers will be able to self publish on the Discord store with 90% revenue share going to the developer. The remaining 10% covers our operating costs, and we’ll explore lowering it by optimizing our tech and making things more efficient.

Epic Games recently announced that its store would offer an 88/12 revenue split compared to Valve’s standard 70/30. Valve comparatively announced that it will offer better rates in an attempt to bring big name publishers back to the platform.

Source: Discord

Make Your Own Paragon: Epic Releases Paragon Assets


All of those internet-savvy armchair developers can finally have their day in the sun, as Epic Games announced that they will release all assets related to Paragon, for free. Assets include 20 characters with their skins, voice overs, animations, as well as over 1,500 environment components from the ill-fated Paragon MOBA. And that’s not all, as more Paragon asset packs are set to release during the Spring and Summer of this year.

The release offers some insight into just how much this game cost to make, and potentially lost, as the art assets themselves (according to the news release) cost Epic $12 million to create and that number will only rise by the millions as more assets are pushed out.

(Source: Unreal)

Is Paragon Unsustainable? Yes, Also Shutting Down


It’s barely been ten days since we reported that Paragon was likely unsustainable and that Epic would be giving it another look in the coming weeks.

“Over the next few weeks, we’ll be figuring out if and how we can evolve Paragon to achieve growth and success, and trying some things internally. In the meantime, Paragon’s release cadence will be slower.”

Evidently the decision was much easier than originally thought, because a week after this announcement Epic has announced the imminent closure of Paragon. In a rare statement, Epic took full responsibility for Paragon’s inability to draw in players, and apologized for failing the community despite the team’s hard work.

We didn’t execute well enough to deliver on the promise of Paragon. We have failed you — despite the team’s incredibly hard work — and we’re sorry.

Servers will shut down on April 26, however Epic warns that the quality of matchmaking will degrade naturally as players leave. Epic is offering full refunds for every purchase on any platform.

Instructions for a refund are as follows:

  1. If you’re not playing on PC, link your Epic account (create one if necessary).
  2. If you play on PC, or have already linked your Epic account, you can request your refund here.

(Source: Epic)

Paragon Might Be Unsustainable and Fortnite Killed It


There is no doubt that Epic Games has been drawing in the players and the money with the release of their PUBG-esque Fortnite Battle Royale. While Epic refuses to separate the two modes, it did recently announce that Fortnite had drawn in a combined forty million downloads. While Fortnite has been a runaway success, it looks like the game may have sealed the doom of another Epic product.

In an open letter to the Paragon community, Epic admitted that updates have been slow and the title’s inability to draw in players with each new updated has raised cause for concern. The update notes that over the coming weeks it will be looking at Paragon and determining how to move forward with updates.

Over the next few weeks, we’ll be figuring out if and how we can evolve Paragon to achieve growth and success, and trying some things internally. In the meantime, Paragon’s release cadence will be slower.

Epic Games admits that a fair number of members of the Paragon team have jumped ship and moved over to Battle Royale and that the title may not reach what Epic considers to be a sustainable game.

Here inside Epic, we’re talking about the future of Paragon in pretty much the same terms as you’re talking about it. The core challenge is that, of new players who try Paragon, only a small number continue to play regularly after a month. Though Paragon has evolved, no iteration has yet achieved that magical combination of ingredients that make for a sustainable game. (As an aside, the problem isn’t marketing or how to make money with Paragon. We have good ideas that would solve those problems if we can find a way to make Paragon grow.)

The entire post can be read at the link below.

(Source: Reddit)

In Plain English: Epic Sues Two Fortnite Cheat Creators


I’m not entirely happy with the press coverage of Epic Games’ lawsuit. If you’ve been reading the news this week, you may be under the impression that Epic Games was so angry about two particular players cheating in Fortnite that the game developer decided to take these two individuals to court. This isn’t exactly the case.

Epic Games has filed complaints against Charles Vraspir and Brandon Boom in separate cases in North Carolina district court. Unsurprisingly, Epic has chosen to go with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act for their main point of attack, alleging that the cheats involve illegally modifying the game code. By going for copyright infringement, Epic is looking to slap both defendants with some potentially hefty fines (up to $150,000 each) plus damages and any additional profits that the defendants made from the sale of said cheats. In the interim, Epic is seeking an injunction preventing the defendants from continuing to use and advertise said cheat programs.

One interesting note in this lawsuit that may help their case is intent. The lawsuit docket makes several notes of both Vraspir and Boom stating that their goal is to ruin the business viability of Fortnite by making the game as unbearable to play as possible.

In an effort to adversely impact as many people as possible while playing and cheating at Fortnite, Defendant specifically targets streamers. He has declared that it is his objective to prevent streamers from winning the game and has boasted in online cheating discussion channels that his goal is to “stream snipe,” i.e., kill streamers as they stream. Defendant has said that making streamers hate Fortnite is Defendant “in a nutshell.”

Epic also alleges that Vraspir’s conduct may be related to the fact that he was banned from Fortnite PvE for cheating:

 

Defendant’s unlawful conduct may be the result of a misplaced antipathy towards Epic because he was banned from Epic for cheating.

This is known in court as the famous “u mad” strategy.

Now those of you who read In Plain English know that the legality of cheating has come up in the past. The court ruled that the use of bot software in World of Warcraft did not constitute copyright infringement because the software itself was found to not violate Blizzard’s copyright. If the software is found to be violating Epic’s copyright by making illegal modifications or by violating DMCA rules in circumventing protections, it could spell trouble.

This is a copyright infringement and breach of contract case in which the Defendant is infringing Epic’s copyrights by injecting unauthorized computer code into the copyright protected code of Epic’s popular Fortnite® video game. In so doing, Defendant is creating unauthorized derivative works of Fortnite by modifying the game code and, thus, materially altering the game that the code creates and the experience of those who play it.

The Fortnite cheat in question has been discontinued on the cheat maker’s website, along with a Paragon cheat that was similarly discontinued over legal disputes from Epic.

[Column] Bluehole Studio Doesn’t Have A Moral (or Legal) Leg To Stand On


Bluehole Studios this week decided to release a press release stating that it is considering “further action” against Epic Games over the Battle Royale mode recently added to Fortnite. According to the release, Bluehole is concerned over similarities between the two games, and how Epic uses Playerunknown’s Battlegrounds in conversations with the community and press in comparison to Fortnite.

“We’ve had an ongoing relationship with Epic Games throughout PUBG’s development as they are the creators of UE4, the engine we licensed for the game. After listening to the growing feedback from our community and reviewing the gameplay for ourselves, we are concerned that Fortnite may be replicating the experience for which PUBG is known.”

As someone who has been following actual cases for years, I’ll give this as simply as I know how: Bluehole Studio doesn’t have a leg to stand on, either legally in court or morally in the court of public opinion. And since PUBG is running on Epic’s Unreal Engine, any action taken by the former against the latter would accomplish little more than a self-inflicted gunshot to the leg, just ask Silicon Knights how that worked out.

So let’s take this piece by piece.

1. (Legal) Bluehole Studios Doesn’t Own The Mechanic

You can’t copyright game mechanics, it is not within the purview of United States and UK law, and the EU has not weighed in on the matter yet. It is, however, possible to protect your game mechanics through trademark, however the process is extremely time and resource intensive, and I can say by simply pulling up a list of patents owned by Bluehole (a list of one) that they do not own the patent for a Battle Royale game mechanic. In short, Bluehole Studios has no legal standing because they don’t own the concept. Neither does Brendan Greene.

For legal precedent, we can look at exactly the kind of company devious enough to patent a game mechanic, and of course I am talking about Namco Ltd. Back in the 90’s, Namco patented the concept of having a mini-game that can be played during a game’s loading screen. The patent didn’t actually have the chance to be legitimized in court, as Namco never used it to sue another developer, and it expired in 2015. There are heavy doubts as to whether or not Namco would have won such a lawsuit, but the threat was enough to keep some developers from taking the risk.

Namco’s patent very likely would have failed because patent law stipulates that your patented item can’t have existed, and there are verifiable records of games with mini-game loading screens existing before Namco patented the idea in Ridge Racer. Likewise, the existence of numerous Battle Royale style games ensures that, even if Bluehole decided to head over to the patent office and absorb that cost, that they would ultimately fail in their attempt at ownership.

2. (Moral) That Time Bluehole Tried to Steal Lineage III

Out of the two parties involved in this dispute, incidentally Bluehole is the one most acquainted with criminal theft, a matter that MMO Fallout covered heavily back in its infancy. Back in 2009, civil and criminal charges were brought against multiple Bluehole Studios employees alleging that they had stolen trade secrets and assets while employed at NCSoft and used those assets in creating the action MMO Tera. Six employees were found guilty, with jail sentences being handed out as part of the criminal proceedings, however Bluehole as a corporate entity was found to not be guilty. Those employees, as you might expect, haven’t been working at Bluehole since then.

But still, there is a certain level of hypocrisy for a company with an established record of employees going to jail for stealing from another developer, to start pointing figures and making threats, over a mechanic that it doesn’t own, against other developers. Bluehole didn’t start the genre, even if it does have the most popular game in it as of present, and it doesn’t own the genre. If Bluehole does take the threat further, they open themselves up to a world of hurt from Epic’s legal team. Let’s not forget what happened to the last developer that tried to take Epic down in a frivolous lawsuit.

Otherwise I have no opinion on the matter.

In Plain English: Epic Sues Paragon Cheat Maker


suit

Epic Games has launched a lawsuit against German gamer Robin Kreibich under allegations that the defendant violated copyright by selling cheat software for their upcoming MOBA game, Paragon. The program, known as SystemCheats, claims to be the most powerful hack for Paragon and sells as a monthly subscription for approximately $10/month.

The hack promises to give players perfect aiming with “smooth aim” to make their movement seem more natural and presumably less likely for manual detection. According to the creator, the hack is “fully undetected” and can be used with no risk for being banned. Evidently that immunity hasn’t protected Kreibich from court, but the more intrepid viewers might be wondering why a German citizen is being sued in a US district court in California by a game developer based in Maryland. The answer involves some legal wrangling.

Epic Games issued a takedown of Kreibich’s Youtube videos demonstrating how the hack works. When a person files a counter-notice to a Digital Millennium Copyright Act takedown, by Youtube’s own terms of service they consent that any legal matters will be taken care of in Youtube’s judicial district.

It also helps Epic Games that the lawsuit be held in California’s northern district court. Back in 2013, Blizzard won its lawsuit against Ceiling Fan Software simply under the breach of contract charge. The courts agreed that the cheat software was sold with the knowledge that it would breach the contract between World of Warcraft and its users, and the court awarded $7 million in damages and an injunction against Ceiling Fan Software from selling, developing, licensing, or allowing others to use their bot software.

Epic Games is demanding a trial by jury, as well as unspecified damages including reimbursement of their own legal fees.

More coverage to come.

(Source: Scribd)

Less Than Massive: The Cost of Theft


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Silicon Knights is something of a hated company here at MMO Fallout. Those of you who have followed the developer likely know that Silicon Knights licensed the Unreal Engine to develop their games, and back in 2007 launched a lawsuit against Epic alleging that the latter was unable to provide them with a finished development kit in a timely manner, instead choosing to funnel its money into the development of Gears of War and Unreal Tournament. In the lawsuit, Silicon Knights noted that they were forced to develop their own engine to prevent even further delays of Too Human.

Somewhere along the line, it was discovered that Silicon Knights had stolen chunks of the Unreal engine to create their own system, a wholesale copy and paste that even included developer comments and typographical errors present in Unreal. According to one report, 20% of the Unreal Engine was found in the Silicon Knights engine. Epic Games countersued, during which Silicon Knights actively attempted to cover up their actions, and the courts awarded them $9.2 million in damages. Silicon Knights appealed the ruling, however a judge has struck down that appeal. Denis Dyack, former President of Silicon Knights, went on to Precursor Games, the latter of which disbanded last September after a failed Kickstarter campaign for its game Shadow of the Eternals.

On the other hand, if you do have a copy of any of Silicon Knights’ games, hold on to them. Unsold copies of the games that used portions of stolen Unreal code, including Too Human, were destroyed as part of the lawsuit, meaning any remaining copies are sure to be worth something, especially if you find them still wrapped.

(Source: Eurogamer)