Epic Games Is Making A New Unreal Tournament

[arabek]

I don't care at all for multi-player FPS but give me a fully working (and updated to work with today's Linux ecosystem) Unreal 1 on Linux - preferably on Steam where I already own the game - without me having to track down a retail copy of a game that is no longer sold and I'll be happy as a puppy with a bully stick.

Buy it on God old games: http://www.gog.com/game/unreal_tournament_goty

[smitty3268]

Is Epic Games planning to make the game free as a large tech demo for showing off their engine and pay the development by licensing the engine?
Or are there other ways Epic Games gets the needed cash for this project?

I suspect Epic is largely writing this expense off as a tech demo to sell licenses for their engine, but i did see this over at Ars:

Epic will eventually make money off this effort via a Steam Community Market-style marketplace where "developers, modders, artists, and gamers can give away, buy, and sell mods and content," with Epic taking a cut.

So they're likely experimenting at the same time to see how successful they can be with that type of business model.

[GreatEmerald]

I've been thinking along the same lines as you, ChrisXY. Though I think an outright dual-licensing model would work perfectly for them, and the Free Software community would benefit greatly as well.
I have suggested this on the forums now, so you can read the proposal and comment about it here: https://forums.unrealengine.com/show...-funding-model

[ChrisXY]

Epic has noticed that it's a problem, but it seems that they are out of ideas about how to solve this. But they're serious about the community thing, so any ideas you can come up with to solve this problem would be highly appreciated! They will probably be heard! And the GNU/Linux community is probably the best place for brainstorming about it.

Just make everything open source, but not free software. Meaning: A "community license": Everyone can download and modify and share the source code, but not sell a game with it. For selling a game with it you would have to buy a "commercial license".

How much would they really lose?

[Adarion]

An interesting approach. I'll definitely keep myself updated there.
Free as in beer game, parts even free as in freedom. You pay for the mods. 50% to the Epic people, 50% to the modder. Everything else (base game) free as in beer. Developed with community, so Linux is 100% sure. Sounds like a deal.

[GreatEmerald]

Yes, this is like all our dreams coming true at the same time. Except for one thing: to contribute to the game, you have to buy the UE4 license ($20 per month), even if you want to contribute for free. So basically you have to pay in order to be able to create mods or patch security issues or whatever (and a subscription, not a one-shot fee). Which is kind of backwards, because you're supposed to get paid for doing work for them, not the other way round.

Epic has noticed that it's a problem, but it seems that they are out of ideas about how to solve this. But they're serious about the community thing, so any ideas you can come up with to solve this problem would be highly appreciated! They will probably be heard! And the GNU/Linux community is probably the best place for brainstorming about it.

[BSDude]

It seems so. [strike]They didn't say anything about a bussiness model.[/strike] Just "not free to play" and "will be free".

Worth noting that they see this as a living project: the game will keep evolving, that's why it'll be called just "Unreal Tournament".


Edit: see below.

That is a very interesting approach. Might see this game eventually adopt UE5 once that comes out. I bet a lot of content is going to be created by fans all over. Expecting to see "Facing Worlds" one of the first mods, if devs by any error will omit that from the final release

[Ishayu]

It's funnny to read the comments on Windows gaming websites. The idea that something is developed in the open seems to confuse the shit out of some people.

I noticed this too. I was in the Twitch chat when it was announced and the very second Epic said "free" EVERYBODY went "OH NO P2W GG RIP UT 2014" and so on.

NOBODY expected, and even fewer understood, that it would be a community project.

Gamespot had to rephrase the headline on their Unreal Tournament news article 4 times because people kept misunderstanding it.

EDIT: Here's an example:

http://www.gamespot.com/articles/new-unreal-tournament-in-development-and-it-ll-be-absolutely-free/1100-6419511/

EDIT2: Just wanna say I'm SUPER DUPER hyped about this. Been a fan since UT99, loved 2k4 (2k3 felt premature), but not so much UT3. I think this will be great.

[tga.d]

It's funnny to read the comments on Windows gaming websites. The idea that something is developed in the open seems to confuse the shit out of some people.

Any links? I love reading stuff like that - a guilty pleasure of mine.

[Sidicas]

I don't care at all for multi-player FPS but give me a fully working (and updated to work with today's Linux ecosystem) Unreal 1 on Linux - preferably on Steam where I already own the game - without me having to track down a retail copy of a game that is no longer sold and I'll be happy as a puppy with a bully stick.

Unreal 1 is overrated.. I started with UT3 and then went back to UT2004 so I could play UT on linux.. I tried UT1 and honestly thought the Quake series beat the snot out of it. Had a LAN party where we spent an hour and a half setting everybody up to get UT1 working.. Then not even 15 mins later we all booted up Q3A from the same shared folder on the network and played that instead.

UT2004 was damn good though... UT3 not so much as fun as interesting.