[mentos]

I've been working with UE4 for 2 years now and its been the 2 most exciting years of my life. The tools are great but the community is even greater. I've never felt more empowered to create.

UE4 has won this generation of game engines in my eye, I think crytek should take a step back and re-evaluate everything. Maybe they learn from UE4 and compete with UE5 in a few more years or maybe they boldly fork UE4 and add their value as a 3rd party fork/plugin.

I think the sunk costs are too large but I'd love to see Valve fork UE4 and put their engineering might next to Epic's. Would love to hear why this thought of mine is naive/misguided.

[Strom]

Valve is spending their resources on the Source 2 engine instead [1], which is used by their games. Also working on UE4 would be a severe lack of focus and the work on Source 2 would suffer. Only working on UE4 would mean that Valve's own games would suffer because Source 2 receives no love. Migrating all these games to UE4 doesn't seem to have a net positive effect either. It would be a gigantic amount of work and in the end they would have to start paying Epic for the licence. Also, Valve developers have intimate knowledge of the Source engine, which I doubt they have of UE4.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Source_(game_engine)

[rasz_pl]

Every time I talked with someone working with Source (machinima/game devs), all they had to say was how backwards, ancient and dev unfriendly Source is :(

[adventured]

The better solution would be to acquire Epic.

Steam is a juggernaut sales and income producer for Valve, they can easily afford to buy Epic now. That would bring the engine tech, talent and community in-house, and eliminate licensing fees for Valve. There would also be a lot Valve could then do with the UE4 market in tandem with steam.

[izacus]

It would also reduce choice and competition on the market. Do you really wish so much for EVERYTHING to be owned by a few ultra-rich corporations?

[adventured]

Everything? You're being intentionally overly dramatic.

Choice and competition are forever being reduced or increased. Nothing can ever stop that gyration. It is in fact desirable at times for mergers to occur.

I have absolutely no problem with Valve buying Epic. Your premise rests solely on the notion that the combination would be bad due to the scale and consolidation it causes. I reject that entirely and contend it would be better for consumers.

I don't consider "ultra rich" to inherently be an insult or negative. Valve deserves all of their success. Hopefully they buy Epic, as they're an excellent ultra-rich corporation.

There are no by-gun-point cartels in video gaming such that another person or company can't compete. The dramatic fall from grace - and large red ink production - of Electronic Arts a few years ago nicely proved that. If Valve buys Epic and it doesn't work out to the benefit of video game consumers, another developer will step up and gain from the Valve failure, seizing a new opportunity, as has been happening in video gaming for decades non-stop and will continue to happen.

[dpiers]

Tencent purchased a 48.4% stake in Epic a few years ago (for $330M). That's a big shareholder with deep pockets to resist/counter buyout offers.

[jeswin]

>I think the sunk costs are too large but I'd love to see Valve fork UE4 and put their engineering might next to Epic's. Would love to hear why this thought of mine is naive/misguided.

UE4 source code isn't open source (to fork), though the code is available to look at. One could reimplement it, but the engineering effort will be monstrous.

[adventured]

You can in fact fork it. You can do almost anything you want to with it, so long as you obey the EULA and pay any royalties owed.

https://www.unrealengine.com/faq

"What modifications can I make to the source code?"

"You can extend it, modify it, fork it, or integrate it with other software or libraries, with one exception: You can’t combine the Unreal Engine code with code covered by a “Copyleft” license agreement which would directly or indirectly require the Unreal Engine to be governed by terms other than the EULA."

[ericflo]

UE4 is indeed great, and I think their smartest move was creating Blueprints -- they've quietly created probably the most user-accessible programming environment I've seen.

I'm seeing a strong preference for Unity in the VR world, for what it's worth. Unity CEO claims that 90-95% of VR games/apps/experiences use Unity.

[BatFastard]

I think they have 100% of the crappy amateur stuff for sure. Not a unity fan...

[vanattab]

Why are you not a unity fan? I am not gamer programmer by trade but I am using unity help teach some of my younger brother to code and am really enjoying it. What do you see as the downsides of unity?

[ekianjo]

> What do you see as the downsides of unity?

Performance is atrocious compared to other engines.

[moron4hire]

The problem is probably that, because it's so easy to get into [0], it's easy for amateurs to produce something that is at least runnable. But lacking experience or fundamentals in performance or design, it's not often something that is good.

[0] Well, if you have the patience for video tutorials and GUI interfaces. I grew up in a different age for programming training.

[zachlatta]

How can you say that the problem with Unity is that it's too accessible? That's like saying that the problem with today's internet is that too many people have access to it (and, as a result, some parts are shitty).

[moron4hire]

Not willing to definitively say that is not the case ;)

But anyway, I was describing how one might have the perception of the person to which I was replying.

[Namrog84]

Signal to noise ratio may be causing a bias. There are some great things out there that most people wouldn't realize are unity. I think this bias might be caused by the free/communoty version and its overly apparent logos and default look. All the great work is probably paying for full license and thus that and other things minimize the "i am unity" stuff.

[softawre]

Like Hearthstone!

[plaguuuuuu]

You don't need UE or Crytek to develop new in-game hats ;-)