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Epic Games has a Monopoly but no one seem to care

I am sorry but that is nonsense.UE5 looks amazing I wish every game would like that.We all want amazing looking games and UE5 does that.We all would be worried when the engine was like Bethestas junk engine but that is not the case.It is good that everyone is using UE5 not because we get amazing looking games but the games will be faster made easier for developers and everyone will know the engine in and out.So Everyone wins.
 

VN1X

Banned
The biggest games/franchises all run on their own engines (still) which is pretty cool. CoD, R6 Siege, Apex, Halo, DOTA/LoL, Elden Ring, GTA, Battlefield, Destiny/Warframe, CSGO, Valorant, etc

I know this can be done with cherry picking obviously but this is just to say that some of the biggest multi-platform titles or franchises still utilize their own tech.
 

Azurro

Banned
DQ11,FF7R,Psycho naughts,LB planet/ Sackboy adventure, Hellblade All use just the base part of Unreal Most devs are going to use just more than just the base they will use the built shadow, lightings, color patted effects, phyxs ect you will get games like what

Unknown? is talking about above brown and grey all using the same built in templates to no distinguished look between them.​


If a team uses the built-in implementations it means they didn't have the budget or expertise to create their own, so UE5 is still a great benefit.
 
Prolly China's big game plan for the long term. why else would Epic be giving such good incentives.

And on the other hand do most game dev studios even bother making their own engine? we're moving into a new generation of dev's that have grown up on smart phones and a lot of creatives aren't all that deep into tech like the OG's were back in the days.

Think about it for a moment a whole generation of game devs grew up making games on the early versions of home computers and consoles. Not a lot of folks are doing that with an Xbox, Nintendo or Sony systems.
 

Robb

Gold Member
Not even close to being a monopoly from what I can tell. There are still lots of game engines out there.
 

Sentenza

Member
I *am* a bit worried about how everyone and their grandmas are switching to UE and abandoning proprietary tech at an alarming pace, but "every game will look the same" is absolutely NOT the reason for it.
The impoverishment (in terms of variety) of the technological landscape and the concentration of power in the hands of of a not-particularly-user-friendly company owned at 50% by Tencent are far bigger concerns.
 
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Duchess

Member
Cdpr is going ue5 because its cheaper for them and they need to maximise profits for shareholders.
Fucking capitalists.

They should diversify and use Unity. Us gamers won't mind suffering through a 10% performance penalty ...
 

Panajev2001a

GAF's Pleasant Genius
The Monopoly in question is their Unreal Game Engine. With the latest being the Unreal Engine 5.
Now you may say why would anyone care about a Game Engine Monopoly? but the truth runs deeper than that

After big huge Game Dev like CDPR say they will switch over to UE5 for the Witcher 4 instead of using their own in house REDengine i started to get worry


Now today it announced that Crystal Dynamics will also no longer use their Foundation in-house game engine but instead also switch to UE5
for their new Tomb Raider game


Is all the big 3rd party publishers and Developers gone to all Switch to UE5?
who will be the next big Dev to switch from their in house game engine to UE5?
Rockstar Games? Capcom? FromSoftware?
If so that will be bad for game engine diversity if everyone is using the same thing it will all look the same and feel the same
lastly don't forget that Tencent owned 40% of Epic Games


Thus another reason to not want a Unreal Game Engine Monopoly in the gaming industry
as Tencent/China will have their hands on everything in the Western world and that is bad for everyone


Agree, it is a concern.
 

sertopico

Member
There's no monopoly here. Nobody is forcing anybody to use their engine.
Why should one worry? Back in the days where xbox 360 and ps3 came out most of the games were made with UE. This engine offers the most interesting tech and tools right now, other than being downloadable from anybody. It's no wonder that many software houses want to adopt it.
 
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Ogbert

Member
No. They do not have a monopoly.

Anyone is free to use any engine.

They just created the best one in the market. Well done them.

You don’t punish a company for being the best.
 

Topher

Gold Member
sculptured software monopoly GIF
No Way Smh GIF by Amazon Prime Video
 

Jennings

Member
I don't develop video games so I can't think of any reason why I should care if Tencent owns 40% of Epic and studios are using their engine to develop games.
 
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DJ12

Member
Wake me up when epic games buy unity just to kill off a competing product.

If its a monopoly just because they've made the best product then fair enough.

They are purposefully killing competition like other monopolise seem to do.
 
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The_Mike

I cry about SonyGaf from my chair in Redmond, WA
I could understand it if epic said it devs can't release their games on steam if they use unreal engine.

But making game development easier for devs is not a bad thing OP.
 

nemiroff

Gold Member
I don't know about market shares and monopolies.. "Back in the days" it could be annoying for the end user when the dev tools were limited and "everyone" used the same cheap graphical filters making games sort-of looking the same. It's much less of a problem today when the toolboxes in UE5 are bigger and more varied making it possible to carve unique paths to the end.
 
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kraspkibble

Permabanned.
it's not a monopoly. there are other game engines out there for people to use and they are more than free to make their own if they want. however a lot of studios don't want to create their own because of the cost. they'd rather give epic some of their money.

it is crazy how many games they make money off but it's not a monopoly. epic isn't forcing anyone to use unreal.
 
After big huge Game Dev like CDPR say they will switch over to UE5 for the Witcher 4 instead of using their own in house REDengine i started to get worry

RED Engine was crap.

That said, I don't know if switching for UE5 is a good move for them. Generally lacks de overhead for doing what they are used to doing. They need to have a bigger plan than just switching it.
 

Ogbert

Member
By the way, what they *have* is a position of dominance.

Where they could get in trouble is using that position in one area (game engine) to subsidise uncompetitive practices in another (giving away free games to peddle their store).

But the Epic store is shit and no one cares.
 

RoboFu

One of the green rats
I agree with you. All these games are gonna feel soulless and the same now using the same tech. If rockstar switches, we can kiss game engine competition goodbye.

The less unreal and more proprietary, the better
Nah, that’s not even the case now with UE4.

UE is very flexible now unlike UE3. Hell you can make an 8 bit looking 2d game in UE4.
 
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Ozzie666

Member
I don't see the issue here at all? Good product, good name, good support, good price? There are plenty of options out there including self made engines. The gaming doesn't really on Epic or Unreal engine, in fact it's the other way around. People could use Source for example or use their own. Not Epics fault people can't make their own engines for a decent price.
 

kraspkibble

Permabanned.
I don't see the issue here at all? Good product, good name, good support, good price? There are plenty of options out there including self made engines. The gaming doesn't really on Epic or Unreal engine, in fact it's the other way around. People could use Source for example or use their own. Not Epics fault people can't make their own engines for a decent price.
the issue here is epic = bad.

at least that's the narrative on here. same goes for microsoft.
 

FingerBang

Member
"A monopoly is a dominant position of an industry or a sector by one company, to the point of excluding all other viable competitors."

Does the popularity of UE5 exclude all other viable competitors? Are they doing anything that prevents others to get in the game?

Nah man, there's TONS of game engines you don't know. How about web games? How about mobile games? 2D games? This is far from a monopoly. How about all the in-house engines owned by teams all over the world, big and small? How about stuff like Game Maker and Godot and Unity?

There is one simple reason UE4/5 got so popular, it's cheaper that way and the engineers can focus on making the game instead of creating/maintaining the engine. You have no idea what a huge pain in the ass that is. And that's ignoring how painful it is to work for a company and having to learn that new engine from scratch.

Do you want triple AAA games with all the bells and whistles and not having to wait 8 years between entries? Then something like UE5 is the answer. You can hire tons of people who already know how to develop for hit. You find a huge community online and are able to share knowledge between studios. It's actively maintained by paid engineers who can fix serious bugs faster. Oh, and if your game sells like shit, you don't pay them much and haven't lost years on an engine that might never be used again.

Yes, having other players in the game will be great, but let's not ask like they're holding gaming back in any way.

I also don't get the point of games all looking the same. In which way Wonderlands, Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1 + 2 and the Ascent look and play the same?
 
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UE5 isn't even close to having a presence enough to be considered a "monopoly".
I don't even think you can call this a monopoly. Companies are using this engine because they want to. It's available to them and they chose to use it. That's it.

They are free to use others...
 
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Three

Gold Member
I warned you about this:
...
I'm more concerned for engine development. It seems devs are doing less engine development and just more concerned about putting out content on the same game and engine year after year.

This isn't due to an UE5 monopoly though. It's due to trying to cut costs by having little to no inhouse engine developers, just content creators. This has happened because of the shift in the industry towards GaaS and big budget single player content designed to wow you and sold at retail has become less important/popular over the years.
 
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ClosBSAS

Member
Yup...nobody cares. They tried with steam and failed. Unreal engine is a moneymaker and that's fine if it brings good games with good graphics. Already tired of last gen cross gen shitty ass graphics.
 

RoadHazard

Gold Member
They should get better board games and maybe people will care. Nobody wants to come over to play Monopoly.
 

Clear

CliffyB's Cock Holster
Consolidating around a standardized set of tools is very helpful for recruitment and integrating new members quickly into teams.
Also, the biggest issue specifically with in-house tech solutions is that you need strong documentation -which is a lot of extra work, because if so much of the minutia exists only in the heads of the people who built the thing in the first place, what happens when they leave?
 

KungFucius

King Snowflake
Their fees are very reasonable. Even if there isn't another third party engine competitor for AAA games, they still have to compete with publisher's custom built engines.
How exactly is DIY vs. 1 other option competition? It is consolidation and more and more devs are ditching their DIY solution in favor of UE which means some of their engineers will get shitcanned.

If it were actual competition, some other company would stand up a competing solution for devs to outsource that actually is a competitor to UE. I mean if there is money in it for Epic, there is money in it for anyone that can compete with them. Maybe Microsoft will look into spinning off one of their acquired in-house engines as a development option for games.
 

K2D

Banned
Who care about epics position amongst the other engines? The real tragedy is that a chinese company is allowed to goble up 4(9?) percent of the company's shares. This is a gift rapped money funnel into the chinese regime. Appalling.
 

Traxtech

Member
Unreal is always evolving, takes out that time necessary to improve their own engines which is great for development.
 
I thought this was going to be about The Epic game store instead of Unreal Engine.

With that said everyone using Epics engine doesn't mean it's an illegal monopoly. People are using it because it's extremely good compared to the other engines on the market. Being better than your competitors doesn't make you a monopoly. Forcing people to use that product would be closer to what monopolies do.
 

trikster40

Member
Monopolist does not equal most used. If Epic owned all of the game engines out there, that’s a monopoly. Devs get to choose what engine to use, or even create their own.
 

Bragr

Banned
A monopoly means that you shut out competitors, this is not that. Having a dominant game engine does not mean a monopoly. No one is forced to use Unreal.
 

Ezquimacore

Banned
Epic has been building their business for 30 years and now they're literally EPIC. While I don't have problem with acquisitions, unlike other companies Epic games deserve everything they have because of their work and not their money.
 

iorek21

Member
Why should anyone care about which engine devs choose as long as the game is good and performs great?
 
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