[calmd]

Epic Games has been on an acquisition tear -- just in last 12 months:

- SuperAwesome, child safe games

- Hyprsense, facial animation

- Cubic Motion, another facial animation tool

- Rad Game Tools

- Tonic Games, makers of Fall Guys

- Reality Capture

- ArtStation, artist portfolios + marketplace (usually 2D renders)

- Sketchfab, artist portfolios + marketplace (usually 3D models)

On each acquisition, they usually lower the price of the tools to near nothing. It seems to be a clear consolidation play.

[ksec]

I think part of their goal is try to lower the cost to Game Development which is getting insanely expensive. It was also how they started the whole middleware / Game engine. Currently the vast majority of cost are Graphics Asset and ArtStation / Sketchfab are keys to this goal.

Although in reality the cost reduction will likely be spend elsewhere to makes things a little better. So it is either cheaper or higher quality games.

[an_opabinia]

> Although in reality the cost reduction will likely be spend elsewhere to makes things a little better. So it is either cheaper or higher quality games.

I agree. Photoreal asset libraries will make it a lot cheaper to finance games though, like to build your demo to get the funding could decrease radically. This is the strategy behind these acquisitions.

[zeroego]

In May of 2019 they acquired Psynoix too. There's been some good addition to Rocket League, but the micro-transactions have definitely increased/become more expensive.

[chansiky]

That's a great portfolio, a very focused and intentional portfolio.

I'll be honest. I'm pretty astonished, solely from the things Unreal has put out recently.

I'm not entirely sure where Artstation fits in though, it seems to be a portfolio website for artists more than a marketplace. It has incredible potential though, if I owned the company I would turn it more into a social network, more chat/communication/group features rather than use it for its assets. I think its only serious competitor is DeviantArt and that website is well, how shall I say it, full of deviants.

[Rd6n6]

Like how Google has positioned itself as the interface between users and most of the internet, Epic seems to be positioning itself to be the interface between game developers and the game development ecosystem. Who will be next, Gamasutra? For Google, this makes sense because they are an advertising and tracking company. I wonder what Epic's model will be - to become a mega-platform, or something else?

[shagmin]

Thought it's worth mentioning - they also recently spent $95 million to move their headquarters to a better location.

In general they seem like an ambitious company, and one to be optimistic about.

[app4soft]

> - ArtStation, artist portfolios + marketplace (usually 2D renders)

> - Sketchfab, artist portfolios + marketplace (usually 3D models)

That is how Microsoft bought GitHub, usually developer portfolios + donation platform.

TL;DR: LinkedIn

[app4soft]

Near forget, about GitHub Copilot, which is trained on users code without GitHub users permission.