Epic Games Joins The Open 3D Foundation

[Ironmask]

From the press release:

“The metaverse will require companies to work together to advance open standards and open-source tools, and we believe the Open 3D Foundation will play an important role in this journey,” said Petit. “With shared standards for interoperability, we’re giving creators more freedom and flexibility to build interactive 3D content using the tools they’re most comfortable with, and to bring those amazing experiences to life in Unreal Engine and across other 3D engines.”

The "Petit" credited with that statement is Marc Petit, VP of Unreal Engine Ecosystem at Epic Games

Ah, so this whole thing is a scam.
Now the rogue's gallery invested in it makes sense.

[skeevy420]

Conflict of interests? They license a game engine, then are in a BoD of an Open Source 3D game engine.

Seriously, why would Epic help competitors to their main form of revenue?

Simplest answer: The exact same reason Valve quit making Half Life 3 and now makes things like Proton which allows games other than what Valve makes be bought and played -- they own a game store and anything that helps others make games easier to sell them on their store while simultaneously bringing Epic good publicity is why.

Long term, they could potentially share enough of their engine and code with the O3DE to allow asset interoperability so 3D model makers could make one tiger that works on multiple game engines so they could have something like Unity's asset store for developers in addition to their game store. Epic could be making money during the production and selling phases of the game making process. Even if a game flopped and never made it to market they could potentially be getting something.

[piotrj3]

From the press release:

“The metaverse will require companies to work together to advance open standards and open-source tools, and we believe the Open 3D Foundation will play an important role in this journey,” said Petit. “With shared standards for interoperability, we’re giving creators more freedom and flexibility to build interactive 3D content using the tools they’re most comfortable with, and to bring those amazing experiences to life in Unreal Engine and across other 3D engines.”

The "Petit" credited with that statement is Marc Petit, VP of Unreal Engine Ecosystem at Epic Games

I would suspect the move is less conflict of interest but more that if they make unreal - open3d engine to certain level compatible, they kind of together can kill competition.

[timofonic]

I would suspect the move is less conflict of interest but more that if they make unreal - open3d engine to certain level compatible, they kind of together can kill competition.

Fake duopoly? Half-baked but popular and free vs professional one but proprietary and source code available? Twisted strategy.

I consider Linux Foundation is more into profit than advancing Linux ecosystem, really

[ezst036]

Hmmm, I thought they were supposed to be "good guys"

Valve are the "good guys".

Epic? Nah.

[theriddick]

Probably joined it to influence asset compatibility with UE4/5 so developers have less issues moving away from Open 3D if they so choose. Not really a bad thing. A common tactic, help competition to help be more compatible with your own stuff.

[Mike Frett]

Sounds like some BS to me.

[anarki2]

After all the damage they've done with that stupid store price trial, they can kiss my @rse.

[wsippel]

I think some people don't realize that Epic isn't all about Unreal Engine. They own a whole bunch of common, engine-agnostic middleware solutions, both developed in-house like EOS, or acquired through Panda (EasyAntiCheat), Quixel (Mixer) or RAD Game Tools (Oodle, Bink, Miles). They also own a bunch of services like Artstation. So of course they care about interoperability and common industry standards.

[OBWANDO]

I understand the skepticism, but as the last person said, it's not all about Unreal Engine. They are always thinking ahead of the market, and Tim is a big believer in "A rising tide lifts all boats." As for the foundation, it's a non-profit, and the money is used to market, support, and grow the project.

When you look at how open source has changed so many different industries, and then at the games and 3D communities, you'll find they are much less involved. This is a way to start to change that by creating better industry standards and support from each partner. This opens up new avenues to build the next-generation tools. When you get companies and open source aligned, you can help solve the USD/OBJ/FBX/GLTF/DAE/<insert another format here> conversion. This means better fidelity from not having to convert from A to B. And yes, we can all use Assimp, but conversion still isn't perfect. And I'm not even talking about the future of 3D going forward while helping ensure that Linux/Vulkan are treated as first-class citizens.

But to do that, you have to start somewhere. And that's with the tools and partners that developers are using. Coming together and creating standards means less cost and better results, which the development studio wins in the end, along with all of the partners that participated along the way.

Try to keep an open mind. It's a big ship to turn. If you have questions, reach out in the O3DE Discord, or post here.
The open-source project is very much an open book.