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Watch the Epic Games GDC 2016 keynote right here!
Although plenty of announcements have already come out of this year's Game Developers Conference, the main Expo doesn't officially begin until today. And Epic Games is kicking off the festivities with an opening keynote, led by none other than its founder Tim Sweeney. It's unclear what we should expect from the Unreal Engine creator, but the company did say the GDC 2016 event will be newsworthy. You can watch it live starting at 9:30AM PT/12:30PM ET, via the embedded stream below.
Epic Games: Microsoft can't be allowed to control PC gaming
Tim Sweeney, co-founder of Epic Games (Unreal Engine, Gears of War), has written a scathing op-ed about Microsoft's Universal Windows Platform initiative for The Guardian. Sweeney argues that Microsoft is creating a closed platform for Windows 10 "the first apparent step" towards locking down a monopoly on app distribution and commerce.
Create VR experiences within VR itself using Unreal Engine
Epic Games has been teasing "the future of VR development" recently, and the team is finally ready to tell everyone what that is: Creating virtual reality content within virtual reality itself, using the full version of its Unreal Engine 4. Epic cofounder Tim Sweeney says that while the company's been supporting the likes of the Oculus Rift from the outset, the irony is that, up to this point, the experiences we've seen so far have been developed using the same tools as traditional video games. "Now you can go into VR, have the entire Unreal editor functioning and do it live," he says. "It almost gives you god-like powers to manipulate the world."
Epic Games reveals 'Bullet Train,' a sci-fi shooter for Oculus Touch
Epic Games, the studio behind Gears of War, unveiled its brand new virtual reality game, Bullet Train, during the Oculus Connect 2 conference today. Bullet Train is an Oculus Touch experience, meaning players use two motion-sensing controllers to pick up weapons, shoot and interact with the environment. Plus, Bullet Train features bullet time and teleportation, and it's developed in Unreal Engine 4. Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney presented Bullet Train to the world today, and he's been a longtime champion of virtual reality. In February, he told Engadget that VR was "going to change the world."
One of gaming's most used engines is now free
Created in Unreal Engine 4 Game development is expensive. It's not a question of the tools costing too much; game engines like Unity and GameMaker Studio offer free versions, and paid versions aren't far out of reach. That's a recent development, though. When the last generation of game consoles (Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Nintendo Wii) ruled the roost, the Unreal Engine was both ubiquitous and costly. Its latest iteration, Unreal Engine 4, is widely used, but has taken a sideline to free offerings from the likes of Unity. The engine's maker, Epic Games, isn't sitting idly by and letting the competition take over, though: as of this morning, Unreal Engine 4 is free for all to use.
Epic Games head believes VR will 'change the world'
Tim Sweeney knows the video game industry. He started Epic Games, the studio behind huge franchises like Gears of War, Unreal Tournament, and Infinity Blade, and the widely used game development software, Unreal Engine. He's hailed as a founding father of the modern gaming industry, having started Epic Games in 1991 while still in college, and he's a technical genius with keen business sense. So when he says virtual reality is going to change the world, we're listening. "There are some amazing things happening in VR right now, and a lot of them haven't seen the light of day publicly at all," Sweeney said during a phone interview this week. "But next year is going to just be a watershed time for VR."
Epic Games is giving away $5 million to Unreal Engine 4 developers
Back in the days of dial-up, when Tim Sweeney was 21 and in his third year of college, he needed cash to release his first game -- "thousands of dollars," as he recalls. To pay for the game's launch, for two summers he borrowed his dad's tractor and mowed lawns in his childhood neighborhood. Today, Sweeney is the founder of Epic Games: a powerhouse in the video game world, responsible for the Gears of War franchise and Unreal Engine, now in its fourth iteration of providing development tools to aspiring and established game developers. With Epic's status and resources, Sweeney today announced Unreal Dev Grants, a pool of $5 million available to anyone creating interesting projects in Unreal Engine 4. No strings -- or tractors -- attached.
Unreal Engine 4 to support Windows Phone and Windows RT, but not anytime soon
Unreal Engine 4's new $19 subscription option might be real tempting for developers on a budget, unless, of course, they're hoping to make games for Windows Phone and Windows RT. Although Epic Games' next-gen engine doesn't work with the aforementioned flavors of Microsoft's OS, that might be changing, albeit slowly. Tim Sweeney, the studio's co-founder and CEO, divulged on the company's forums that the firm's already doing legwork to support the platforms. "We have been doing some work in this direction (implementing various levels of WinRT API support) and we want to have Windows Phone support eventually, but we're a very long way from having a ship-quality implementation," Sweeney said. Still, the head honcho adds that their focus will remain on Android and iOS development before branching out to Microsoft's other flavors of Windows. Impatient devs can stick with Unreal Engine 3, but those aching for the latest tools will have to sit tight a while longer.
Epic Games' Unreal Engine 4 now available by subscription for $19, headed to OS X and more
Unreal Engine 3 set the standard for games last generation, powering breakout franchises like Gears of War and Mass Effect. We don't know if Unreal Engine 4 will have the same impact, but today's move by Epic Games to massively democratize this game engine is certainly a step in the right direction. Today, Unreal Engine 4 is going subscription: For $19/month you get, "access to everything, including the Unreal Editor in ready-to-run form, and the engine's complete C++ source code hosted on GitHub for collaborative development." That's according to Epic Games head Tim Sweeney, who spoke at a GDC event this morning. Any game published commercially must also pay 5 percent of gross profit to Epic (which could get lucrative very quickly for Epic). It's a move aimed directly at the evolving world of contemporary game development, where indie hit-makers like Jonathan Blow take the stage at Sony's PlayStation 4 unveiling in place of triple-A studios. We were shown a simple Flappy Bird clone for iOS, for instance, as an example of the flexibility of UE4 (the demon lord seen above is an example of the other end of the engine). Beyond the subscription service and full access to the source code (which is a big move unto itself), Unreal Engine 4 is getting OS X support. There's also evidence in the source code that Epic's working on Oculus Rift, Linux, Steam Machines and HTML5 support. But we already kinda knew all that, right? So we asked Tim Sweeney for a deeper dive into today's news and what it means for Epic Games as both a game engine maker and a game studio. Head below for the full video!
Major Nelson co-host burns Epic in 'free' debate
Those of you who regularly listen to the podcast for Xbox Live's Major Nelson may have noticed your clicking finger heating up as you moused over the "Download" link this week, probably because the Major's co-host "e" used the show to totally burn (In l33t parlance: own) Epic. It's either that, or you were having a stroke. Let's hope it was the totally sick burn.The burn-a-thon started last month with Epic's Tim Sweeney's complaint on 1UP Yours that they wanted to give their new Gears of War maps away, but Microsoft was forcing them to charge. On this week's cast, the Major's fellow Xbox Live staffer e retorted: "I do find this amusing though; a lot of people may not remember this but a year ago Epic was bragging about how they cost us one billion dollars." OMG! Burn!
