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Other Games / Unreal Tournament 4 - Crowdsourced AAA Gaming
« on: May 17, 2014, 05:07:28 pm »
After a long period of silence on the fate of the Unreal franchise, Epic has unveiled their plans for the newest installment in the series. However, they're decided to try something a bit different:
In short, UT4 will be created through semi-open source collaboration between fans of the series, old developers, and former modders. It will be released for free, but Epic will make money by allowing modders to sell content (with a cut going to Epic), and by using the game as an advertisement for their engine to be licensed out to others, which is basically what they did before. Hopefully it works out, since I heartily approve of free, crowdsourced, easily modded games.
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Work on the future of Unreal Tournament begins today, and we’re happy to announce that we’re going to do this together, with you. We know that fans of the game are as passionate about Unreal Tournament as we are. We know that you have great ideas and strong opinions about where the game should go and what it should be. So let’s do something radical and make this game together, in the open, and for all of us.
Here’s the plan:
We’ve created a small team of UT veterans that are beginning work on the project starting today.
From the very first line of code, the very first art created and design decision made, development will happen in the open, as a collaboration between Epic, UT fans and UE4 developers. We’ll be using forums for discussion, and Twitch streams for regular updates.
If you are a fan and you want to participate, create a free account and join the forum discussion.
All code and content will be available live to UE4 developers on GitHub.
The game will be true to its roots as a competitive FPS.
Development will be focused on Windows, Mac and Linux.
It will take many months until the game is playable by gamers. This is real development from scratch.
When the game is playable, it will be free. Not free to play, just free.
We’ll eventually create a marketplace where developers, modders, artists and gamers can give away, buy and sell mods and content. Earnings from the marketplace will be split between the mod/content developer, and Epic. That’s how we plan to pay for the game.
In short, UT4 will be created through semi-open source collaboration between fans of the series, old developers, and former modders. It will be released for free, but Epic will make money by allowing modders to sell content (with a cut going to Epic), and by using the game as an advertisement for their engine to be licensed out to others, which is basically what they did before. Hopefully it works out, since I heartily approve of free, crowdsourced, easily modded games.
