Real purpose of Unreal Tournament 4 being free is? Monetization, Marketing &/or X??

[richardboegli]

http://www.roosterteeth.com/show/red-vs-blue



So I've been playing UT4 again for about a month and a half, after a year and a half sabbatical and started to muse over the point of it all.....

ie: What is the point of Unreal Tournament 4?

Clearly, Epic with Community involvement is creating a Triple AAA Arena Shooter for use in E-sport, but what else?

My initial thoughts were:
1) It was a showcase (Marketing exercise) of what could be done with the UE4 engine with a small team of developers and a great community. Challenging the norms that you need a ridiculously large team to create a AAA game.
Therefore the game itself can be a lost leader and be given away for free, as it is a marketing exercise.

2) Next thought was when I saw hats, was that this was a copy of TF2 and other "Free" Games.

The game is free and vanity items are what the profit will be made from

UT Marketplace FAQ show a 25% return for cosmetic items (eg: hats), but with Revenue sharing for other types of content is yet to be determined

3) Base game is free and DLC addons will cost extra

Money talks, if people want to expand the game, then by all means do it for free. But if they want to charge for a map or an addon then the option is there also.

4) It was there to help bring people into Epic Games Launcher - As per a post I had done almost a year and a half ago, while the current plan is to compete with Unity with UE4, I foresee the Epic Game Launcher competing with the likes of Steam, Origin and Uplay. This is reinforced by the fact that there are a few games which are in the launcher now besides UT

• Fortnite
• Shadow Complex - Just appeared today for me (when I originally drafted post)
• ARK
• Paragon

The real reason for this post is to start to figure out exactly what Epic is trying to achieve with this game. Therefore allowing the community the opportunity to align with whatever strategy is trying to be achieved.


https://forums.unrealtournament.com/...t=Monetization

https://forums.unrealtournament.com/...t=Monetization

Note: I'd actually written the post up almost a week ago, but I had to re-read it, do a bit more research and make sure it read well.

[CrispyCorpses]

.... well they have to gain SOMETHING. If they want to show off an engine or sell hats, so be it. No one can operate 100% free

[PayBack]

Its pretty obvious isnt it?

1.) UT has always been an Unreal Engine show piece. New Unreal Engine, new version of UT. UT4 is the next show piece for Unreal Engine.
2.) Epic has a new business model where they license the Unreal Engine and its content for free, if you make more X amount of money selling your creation, you owe Epic Y amount. This project creates a ton of new Unreal Engine familiar game developers, increasing the size of the possible pool of Unreal Engine games that Epic can collect money from.
3.) Epic will be doing a market place where they collect profit from community members content. They need to make money some how.

I really dont see any other reason why Epic is making this game besides those 3.

[Mulsiphix]

I'm curious, does anybody dislike or disagree with this new style of monetization? I'm extremely hopeful that it takes off. I don't see any downsides

[Trinatek]

There isn't any one reason. There are a ton of pros and cons that go with either choice (whether it's a paid game or a free model).

[RPGWiZ4RD]

IMO:

1. Epic Games these days focus more than ever on the UE engine itself, licensing it out to lots of game developers and wanting to make major amount of money this way. We can already see such a huge adoption rate and it's clear the goals is to make UE4 the widest adopted engine to date
2. UT I think is a project to see how "community driven" development model works and
3. To honor the small but dedicated UT dev team to let them work on their "baby" they care so much about
4. UT has always had a bit of a "showcase" UE status, although this time less noticeably so but still a noteworthy factor
6. Bring e-Sports attention to Unreal Engine
7. Figure out Marketplace funding system and how to adopt this the best way possible (future titles in mind as well)
8. Figure out a portal/UI to bring a seamless Epic Games portal experience
9. Figure out a clever way of supporting/intercorporating mods in modern day UE based games
10. How to refresh arena FPS to modern day PC gaming scene

I think these all reasons combined to various degrees of importance is the reason why UT(4) free is happening. There's a lot of reasons IMO this project is important for Epic Games but I kinda wished they had put even more resources into it since there's a lot of important stuff going on that will benefit Epic Games as a whole later down the road.

[de`pain]

If they charged a penny for each combo explosion, the devs could retire after one game of CTF.

[richardboegli]

So the general thoughts so far are in alignment with mine. I wasn't as detailed with some items, but there wasn't anything which jumped out.

.... well they have to gain SOMETHING. If they want to show off an engine or sell hats, so be it. No one can operate 100% free

There isn't any one reason. There are a ton of pros and cons that go with either choice (whether it's a paid game or a free model).

Yep, this is what I am trying to get to the bottom of, to see if I missed anything.

Its pretty obvious isnt it?

1.) UT has always been an Unreal Engine show piece. New Unreal Engine, new version of UT. UT4 is the next show piece for Unreal Engine.
2.) Epic has a new business model where they license the Unreal Engine and its content for free, if you make more X amount of money selling your creation, you owe Epic Y amount. This project creates a ton of new Unreal Engine familiar game developers, increasing the size of the possible pool of Unreal Engine games that Epic can collect money from.
3.) Epic will be doing a market place where they collect profit from community members content. They need to make money some how.

I really dont see any other reason why Epic is making this game besides those 3.

Forgot to mention that UE4 is now free, with the 5% royality fee.

I'm curious, does anybody dislike or disagree with this new style of monetization? I'm extremely hopeful that it takes off. I don't see any downsides

As long as the main content is free and it doesn't become a pay-to-win game, which is highly unlikely due to the amount of time spent balancing all the weapons.

IMO:

1. Epic Games these days focus more than ever on the UE engine itself, licensing it out to lots of game developers and wanting to make major amount of money this way. We can already see such a huge adoption rate and it's clear the goals is to make UE4 the widest adopted engine to date
2. UT I think is a project to see how "community driven" development model works and
3. To honor the small but dedicated UT dev team to let them work on their "baby" they care so much about
4. UT has always had a bit of a "showcase" UE status, although this time less noticeably so but still a noteworthy factor
6. Bring e-Sports attention to Unreal Engine
7. Figure out Marketplace funding system and how to adopt this the best way possible (future titles in mind as well)
8. Figure out a portal/UI to bring a seamless Epic Games portal experience
9. Figure out a clever way of supporting/intercorporating mods in modern day UE based games
10. How to refresh arena FPS to modern day PC gaming scene

I think these all reasons combined to various degrees of importance is the reason why UT(4) free is happening. There's a lot of reasons IMO this project is important for Epic Games but I kinda wished they had put even more resources into it since there's a lot of important stuff going on that will benefit Epic Games as a whole later down the road.

I think the resources are on the horizon. Run as lean for as long as possible then flood it.

If they charged a penny for each combo explosion, the devs could retire after one game of CTF.

Imagine that, micro-transactions for ammo in an FPS. License to print money!

Once UT4 is released it will be very interesting to sit down and review what went well and what needs to be improved for the next time a project like this is attempted. It would serve as a very good case study.

[Mulsiphix]

I think these all reasons combined to various degrees of importance is the reason why UT(4) free is happening. There's a lot of reasons IMO this project is important for Epic Games but I kinda wished they had put even more resources into it since there's a lot of important stuff going on that will benefit Epic Games as a whole later down the road.

I would like to believe it is still a possibility. There seems to be so much uncertainty on whether or not UT is viable with today's gamers. If they see something that makes them feel more confident, its feasible to assume they would expand the resources currently allotted to UT4's development. Yes, its probably wishful thinking, but I wouldn't rule it out just yet .

 

Once UT4 is released it will be very interesting to sit down and review what went well and what needs to be improved for the next time a project like this is attempted. It would serve as a very good case study.

What I wouldn't give to read it .