Game development begins with destroying Girls' Frontline.

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750 million people were online at the same time!

Many games have fewer than 750 million players worldwide.

However, Fortnite already has this number of concurrent players, so you can imagine how huge the total number of Fortnite players worldwide must be!

Ever since.

Starting in July, EPIC began to fully launch its EPIC Games Platform plan.

Eric Nathan, as the project manager for the EPIC Store, began to be involved in the entire process around that time.

By March of this year.

The EPIC Store has completed most of its software development.

Originally scheduled to launch in May of this year, Erik Nathan discovered during actual operation that EPIC's biggest problem was not the program at all.

The real question is how to persuade game developers to join the gaming platform.

EPIC is now facing an even more difficult situation than Spark.

Spark has at least a large domestic presence.

But EPIC has nothing but itself.

One glance.

EA and Blizzard both have their own platforms.

Almost all small and medium-sized manufacturers cooperate with STEAM.

Eric Nathan spent a significant amount of time searching for partners for EPIC.

After all, a company as big as EPIC can't be without any smaller partners when it launches its platform, right?

originally.

Eric Nathan felt that this matter should not be difficult.

After all, EPIC's Unreal Engine has a great reputation in the industry, and the huge success of Fortnite has also given EPIC a large player base.

But when Eric Nathan took this set to the manufacturer...

Other manufacturers, however, don't seem to recognize it.

First is EA.

As the American penguin, EA has its own gaming platform, and since the eve of Battlefield 3's release in 2011, it has stopped releasing on other platforms.

It turned into a situation where the oranges were monopolized.

It's still exclusive to this day; I haven't even logged into Steam, so naturally I have no interest in logging into EPIC.

EA can't handle it.

Eric Nathan went to Blizzard again, but Blizzard was even more ruthless than EA. Years of operation had given Battle.net a stable user base, so they were even less likely to approach him.

Then came the long negotiations.

A month passed.

The progress of EPIC's partner program...

It is 0..

Just at this time.

The emergence of the Spark platform [for Eric Nathan], although Eric Nathan's views on the Spark platform were the same as those of many Americans.

They all thought it was not worth mentioning.

But regarding Lin Li's proposal.

He strongly agrees with the concepts of "next-generation gaming platform" and "full-stack service".

That's why we had to write the proposal overnight.

In Eric Nathan's view, Spark's ideas were like opening a door to a new world for him.

After reading the entire news article.

Eric Nathan repeated it at least three times.

"Full-stack service! Full-stack service! How come I never thought of that!"

Is there anything in this world more suitable for providing full-stack services than EPIC?

With inspiration in mind, Eric Nathan began writing a proposal, which he had to report to his boss.

This represents a major directional shift for EPIC.

Eric Nathan's proposal was not a complete copy of Spark's; in fact, even if EPIC wanted to copy it, they couldn't.

Because the national conditions in the United States are completely different from those in China.

In China, the market is mainly dominated by online games, with very few developers of single-player games, while in the United States, the market is primarily dominated by single-player games.

But it's not entirely true that it can't be changed.

After more than a decade of development, the domestic online game industry has formed two giants, Tencent and NetEase, along with a bunch of established companies such as Perfect World, Seasun Entertainment, and Shanda Games, which still control a large number of distribution channels.

Domestic developers have suffered for too long.

In the US single-player game market, after a longer period of development, the effect of giants is even more pronounced.

EA, Rockstar, Blizzard, Sony, and Microsoft—these giants have established their own set of standards through cost and the industrialization of the gaming industry.

A AAA title.

And using this standard, they completely exploited the most profitable and stable segment of single-player games.

The remaining small and medium-sized manufacturers and independent game developers either find Paradox Interactive to distribute their games or launch them on Steam themselves.

No matter which path you take, you will inevitably be exploited.

Therefore, small and medium-sized developers in the United States have long been dissatisfied.

Eric Nathan's initial idea was to take the big companies route and get them on board first.

But this road is blocked.

Even the major companies that Steam can't handle nowadays, Epic can't handle either.

So Erik Nathan turned his attention to taking over the smaller factories.

Unfortunately, he found that small factories were not easy to manage either.

Because smaller companies are already tied to Steam.

At this point, Spark's path led Eric Nathan to discover a new approach: full-stack services.

From game engines to game releases and marketing, EPIC can provide a one-stop service.

Currently, the licensing fee for Unreal Engine exceeds $100 million, with a 5% commission.

It may not seem like much, but for EPIC...

There's always been something very awkward about it.

Chapter 400 The Three Great Defeats of the Spark Platform

For large companies, 5% is already a considerable sum of money, enough for them to develop their own engines.

Therefore, no one at major game companies uses Unreal Engine.

in turn.

For small companies, although they don't spend a penny within $100 million, the learning curve for Unreal Engine is not low, and more importantly...

Many indie games and small games don't require graphics that necessitate the use of Unreal Engine.

As for the backbone of the industry, many mid-sized manufacturers are also unwilling to use virtual reality.

Even if they don't have the capability to develop their own, they will still choose Unity.

After all, the annual fee for the Unity engine ranges from several thousand to tens of thousands of US dollars.

Thus, large companies persist, small companies have high learning barriers, and medium-sized companies prefer Unity, which only requires submissions once a year.

This has resulted in Unreal Engine, despite its great reputation, remaining in an awkward position within the industry.

Released in 14, Unreal Engine 4 still doesn't have any truly outstanding games.

Ultimately, it was PUBG last year and Fortnite, which EPIC itself used this year, that made Unreal Engine a blockbuster.

But even so.

This doesn't change the fact that while Unreal Engine looks impressive, developers don't really appreciate it.

but now.

The proliferation of next-generation gaming platform standards gave Eric Nathan a completely different idea.

Yes, didn't you guys think that increasing the game engine by 5 percentage points was too expensive?

Can I change it to use EPIC full-stack services and keep the game engine free?

Package the game engine's revenue into the game platform's revenue.

Previously, if a developer used Unreal Engine to release a game, they would have to give Unreal Engine 5% and Steam 30% of the revenue.

Now, no need!

You're using Unreal Engine and publishing on EPIC, and I'm only giving you 12% commission! Rounding that up, my platform's commission is less than 7%!

Where else can you find such a conscientious platform like mine?!

I also include marketing, advertising, and promotion!

You don't have to do anything. Once the game is finished, you can just lie down and make money!

This is the plan.

After submitting the application to the boss at EPIC, I received a very quick and positive response.

The boss fully agreed with Eric Nathan, only making one request: to enhance the benefits of the login platform for service-oriented, free-to-play game developers.

In other words, it's a perk for online game developers.

EPIC has really reaped the benefits this time.

The success of Fortnite.

On the one hand, this makes EPIC's boss very generous with the platform's promotional and even operational costs.

If Eric Nathan had proposed this plan a year ago, he would most likely have been met with a barrage of criticism.

but now.

The boss not only praised Eric Nathan, but even said this at the conference.

"I'm very satisfied with Eric Nathan's spending plan. The current EPIC isn't afraid of spending money; what they're afraid of is you not knowing how to spend it!"

That's a very assertive statement.

But the success of Fortnite has made this domineering spirit more down-to-earth.

~~~

波兰

Warsaw

If STEAM entered a defensive counterattack mode because of the emergence of Spark, then EPIC was preparing for battle because of Spark.

Meanwhile, things seemed a bit calmer for CD Projekt's GOG platform, the developer of The Witcher 3.

At this time, Conrad, the producer of The Witcher 3, was leading his team to develop 2077. As CD Projekt's most ambitious work, the development process of 2077 was not very smooth.

From its initial conception and early development preparation in 2012, to the release of The Witcher 3 in 2015, which marked the start of the project's substantial development phase, and then to the release of the major DLC Blood and Wine for The Witcher 3 in 2016, which ushered in the full-scale development phase of Project 2077, six years have passed.

Conrad's focus shifted from The Witcher 3 to 2077.

However, this transfer of work did not go smoothly for Konrad. In order to facilitate the early stage of the 2077 project, a leader was appointed, namely Pavezov.

Logically, after Conrad completed The Witcher 3, Pavezov should have stepped down, since he was only the one who led the project in its early stages.