Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney calls for Team Open to address game industry’s challenges
At the close of The State of Unreal keynote in Chicago, Tim Sweeney addressed what he called a “time of crisis and also opportunity” in the game industry. He called out new threats of closed ecosystems like Roblox, and one of his solutions is to call for Team Open, an alliance of game companies that could set things right. Sweeney was, as ever, provocative in his words as he ended the keynote that kicked off Unreal Fest. On the upside, he said there’s a “new generation of gamers coming in with new tastes in games, and they’re playing games at a higher rate than any previous generation before.” He noted that the biggest games like Fortnite are once again growing and thriving, but underneath this, there’s a serious challenge to triple-A developers, and that’s that a huge number of the new releases of major games are failing.” He added, “Now we’re seeing often hundreds of millions of dollars of dev cost, followed by tens of millions of dollars of revenue, and the dev costs are continuing to grow. It feels to many like a tidal wave is sweeping over the triple-A game business.” He said everyone has a theory on why it’s happening. But he wanted to back up and identify the key generational changes and trends that are that are behind this. “If we want to come up with an honest solution. We have to accurately identify the problem, and one of the key trends is that gaming is increasingly becoming socially driven,” he said. Single-player games once ruled. But now it’s much more about getting together with your friends, and then deciding what to do together online — to play a game or experience. “And this social increasing angle of gaming is creating a massive advantage for big games and big ecosystems, because a game with a lot of players is much more likely to contain a lot of your friends and a long established game with a huge player base has a much easier job of retaining players than a new game has of attracting new players,” Sweeney said. But he said a lot of the major new multiplayer games are not gaining a sufficient community and momentum to survive, though in the past they might have. “The other big change that’s affecting gaming is that the economy is shifting from buying games to buying things in games, and whether you’re a fan of this or not, the arithmetic of it is undeniable, and this is another thing that reinforces the success of very large existing ecosystems in games,” Sweeney said. This makes it ever harder for new entrants to get in. “If you’ve been playing a game for a long time and it has a huge player base, then you can buy with confidence, knowing that things you purchase will still be useful to you — days, weeks, years later,” he said. “Whereas, when a new game comes out, it’s a much more difficult decision to spend. You’re not sure if you’re going to play it next day, next week, next month, and are much less likely to spend.”The attention war The final trend that’s affecting gaming is that the market for players’ attention has become extraordinarily competitive. He said this battle for attention is “more so than I’ve ever seen before in my lifetime, when we were competing with lame television and other things that turned almost into vice, all competing for people’s times, all very effectively.” Sweeney said, “To overcome these trends, the game industry, whether we like it or not, is reorganizing itself, and there are kind of two big predictions for the future as these problems reverberate throughout the industry. One view of the future is that Roblox grows and eats gaming.” He added, “A lot of people are saying this online, but what you have there is a centralized platform with a single keeper that commoditizes all content, takes more than 70% of revenue, and has 450 million users on board. That’s a real challenge to game developers.” He said Epic Games believes in a very different future and a much brighter one for the people in the room. “And that is that a future of high-quality gaming rising to the challenge, and linking up our content, linking up our communities, and linking up our economies to deliver fun and to serve game gamers with great games in a way we’ve never done before,” Sweeney said. “And to accomplish that, we’re going to all need to change the way we build things.” He said, “We’re going to need to build better games, we’re going to need to build them more efficiently, we’re going to need to design up front and build for connected games, where all of our player bases are connected socially, and our economies are connected, so that players, instead of seeing these as isolated products, see them as part of a global ecosystem that all game developers participate in together.” Sweeney said he wants to work with all of gmaing and with all the game developers in the industry to achieve this together. “The things we built with Unreal Engine 6 are our technological foundation for it, and we believe that this is a big challenge that we all have to rise to. We need to win the comp
At the close of The State of Unreal keynote in Chicago, Tim Sweeney addressed what he called a “time of crisis and also opportunity” in the game industry.
He called out new threats of closed ecosystems like Roblox, and one of his solutions is to call for Team Open, an alliance of game companies that could set things right. Sweeney was, as ever, provocative in his words as he ended the keynote that kicked off Unreal Fest.
On the upside, he said there’s a “new generation of gamers coming in with new tastes in games, and they’re playing games at a higher rate than any previous generation before.”
He noted that the biggest games like Fortnite are once again growing and thriving, but underneath this, there’s a serious challenge to triple-A developers, and that’s that a huge number of the new releases of major games are failing.”
He added, “Now we’re seeing often hundreds of millions of dollars of dev cost, followed by tens of millions of dollars of revenue, and the dev costs are continuing to grow. It feels to many like a tidal wave is sweeping over the triple-A game business.”
He said everyone has a theory on why it’s happening. But he wanted to back up and identify the key generational changes and trends that are that are behind this.
“If we want to come up with an honest solution. We have to accurately identify the problem, and one of the key trends is that gaming is increasingly becoming socially driven,” he said.
Single-player games once ruled. But now it’s much more about getting together with your friends, and then deciding what to do together online — to play a game or experience.
“And this social increasing angle of gaming is creating a massive advantage for big games and big ecosystems, because a game with a lot of players is much more likely to contain a lot of your friends and a long established game with a huge player base has a much easier job of retaining players than a new game has of attracting new players,” Sweeney said.
But he said a lot of the major new multiplayer games are not gaining a sufficient community and momentum to survive, though in the past they might have.
“The other big change that’s affecting gaming is that the economy is shifting from buying games to buying things in games, and whether you’re a fan of this or not, the arithmetic of it is undeniable, and this is another thing that reinforces the success of very large existing ecosystems in games,” Sweeney said.
This makes it ever harder for new entrants to get in.
“If you’ve been playing a game for a long time and it has a huge player base, then you can buy with confidence, knowing that things you purchase will still be useful to you — days, weeks, years later,” he said. “Whereas, when a new game comes out, it’s a much more difficult decision to spend. You’re not sure if you’re going to play it next day, next week, next month, and are much less likely to spend.”
He said this battle for attention is “more so than I’ve ever seen before in my lifetime, when we were competing with lame television and other things that turned almost into vice, all competing for people’s times, all very effectively.”
Sweeney said, “To overcome these trends, the game industry, whether we like it or not, is reorganizing itself, and there are kind of two big predictions for the future as these problems reverberate throughout the industry. One view of the future is that Roblox grows and eats gaming.”
He added, “A lot of people are saying this online, but what you have there is a centralized platform with a single keeper that commoditizes all content, takes more than 70% of revenue, and has 450 million users on board. That’s a real challenge to game developers.”
He said Epic Games believes in a very different future and a much brighter one for the people in the room.
“And that is that a future of high-quality gaming rising to the challenge, and linking up our content, linking up our communities, and linking up our economies to deliver fun and to serve game gamers with great games in a way we’ve never done before,” Sweeney said. “And to accomplish that, we’re going to all need to change the way we build things.”
He said, “We’re going to need to build better games, we’re going to need to build them more efficiently, we’re going to need to design up front and build for connected games, where all of our player bases are connected socially, and our economies are connected, so that players, instead of seeing these as isolated products, see them as part of a global ecosystem that all game developers participate in together.”
Sweeney said he wants to work with all of gmaing and with all the game developers in the industry to achieve this together.
“The things we built with Unreal Engine 6 are our technological foundation for it, and we believe that this is a big challenge that we all have to rise to. We need to win the competition for players’ time, not only against other games, but also against YouTube and TikTok, and everything else that people are doing online,” he said.
“And this was very much on our minds when we set out about building Unreal Engine 6. That’s also what was on the minds of really close partners like Disney and Lego and other triple-A game developers,” Sweeney said. “We’ve been building increasingly close partnerships to them to build this together, and it’s very clear.”
He said that Fortnite, with 80 million monthly active users, is not enough for Epic to do it alone in building the ecosystem in the future.
“We’re going to have to build it together. I think the thesis for that is very optimistic. Between all of us and the world’s best games, many of which use Unreal Engine, we have billions of active users,” he said.
And he said, “So we have the opportunity to form up Team Open and to define the future of gaming together again, and that’s exactly what we want to accomplish in this generation together with you,” Sweeney said. “So that’s what we’re doing.”
0:006:46
1x
The post Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney calls for Team Open to address game industry’s challenges appeared first on GamesBeat.
He called out new threats of closed ecosystems like Roblox, and one of his solutions is to call for Team Open, an alliance of game companies that could set things right. Sweeney was, as ever, provocative in his words as he ended the keynote that kicked off Unreal Fest.
On the upside, he said there’s a “new generation of gamers coming in with new tastes in games, and they’re playing games at a higher rate than any previous generation before.”
He noted that the biggest games like Fortnite are once again growing and thriving, but underneath this, there’s a serious challenge to triple-A developers, and that’s that a huge number of the new releases of major games are failing.”
He added, “Now we’re seeing often hundreds of millions of dollars of dev cost, followed by tens of millions of dollars of revenue, and the dev costs are continuing to grow. It feels to many like a tidal wave is sweeping over the triple-A game business.”
He said everyone has a theory on why it’s happening. But he wanted to back up and identify the key generational changes and trends that are that are behind this.
“If we want to come up with an honest solution. We have to accurately identify the problem, and one of the key trends is that gaming is increasingly becoming socially driven,” he said.
Single-player games once ruled. But now it’s much more about getting together with your friends, and then deciding what to do together online — to play a game or experience.
“And this social increasing angle of gaming is creating a massive advantage for big games and big ecosystems, because a game with a lot of players is much more likely to contain a lot of your friends and a long established game with a huge player base has a much easier job of retaining players than a new game has of attracting new players,” Sweeney said.
But he said a lot of the major new multiplayer games are not gaining a sufficient community and momentum to survive, though in the past they might have.
“The other big change that’s affecting gaming is that the economy is shifting from buying games to buying things in games, and whether you’re a fan of this or not, the arithmetic of it is undeniable, and this is another thing that reinforces the success of very large existing ecosystems in games,” Sweeney said.
This makes it ever harder for new entrants to get in.
“If you’ve been playing a game for a long time and it has a huge player base, then you can buy with confidence, knowing that things you purchase will still be useful to you — days, weeks, years later,” he said. “Whereas, when a new game comes out, it’s a much more difficult decision to spend. You’re not sure if you’re going to play it next day, next week, next month, and are much less likely to spend.”
The attention war
The final trend that’s affecting gaming is that the market for players’ attention has become extraordinarily competitive.He said this battle for attention is “more so than I’ve ever seen before in my lifetime, when we were competing with lame television and other things that turned almost into vice, all competing for people’s times, all very effectively.”
Sweeney said, “To overcome these trends, the game industry, whether we like it or not, is reorganizing itself, and there are kind of two big predictions for the future as these problems reverberate throughout the industry. One view of the future is that Roblox grows and eats gaming.”
He added, “A lot of people are saying this online, but what you have there is a centralized platform with a single keeper that commoditizes all content, takes more than 70% of revenue, and has 450 million users on board. That’s a real challenge to game developers.”
He said Epic Games believes in a very different future and a much brighter one for the people in the room.
“And that is that a future of high-quality gaming rising to the challenge, and linking up our content, linking up our communities, and linking up our economies to deliver fun and to serve game gamers with great games in a way we’ve never done before,” Sweeney said. “And to accomplish that, we’re going to all need to change the way we build things.”
He said, “We’re going to need to build better games, we’re going to need to build them more efficiently, we’re going to need to design up front and build for connected games, where all of our player bases are connected socially, and our economies are connected, so that players, instead of seeing these as isolated products, see them as part of a global ecosystem that all game developers participate in together.”
Sweeney said he wants to work with all of gmaing and with all the game developers in the industry to achieve this together.
“The things we built with Unreal Engine 6 are our technological foundation for it, and we believe that this is a big challenge that we all have to rise to. We need to win the competition for players’ time, not only against other games, but also against YouTube and TikTok, and everything else that people are doing online,” he said.
“And this was very much on our minds when we set out about building Unreal Engine 6. That’s also what was on the minds of really close partners like Disney and Lego and other triple-A game developers,” Sweeney said. “We’ve been building increasingly close partnerships to them to build this together, and it’s very clear.”
He said that Fortnite, with 80 million monthly active users, is not enough for Epic to do it alone in building the ecosystem in the future.
“We’re going to have to build it together. I think the thesis for that is very optimistic. Between all of us and the world’s best games, many of which use Unreal Engine, we have billions of active users,” he said.
And he said, “So we have the opportunity to form up Team Open and to define the future of gaming together again, and that’s exactly what we want to accomplish in this generation together with you,” Sweeney said. “So that’s what we’re doing.”
0:006:46
1x
The post Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney calls for Team Open to address game industry’s challenges appeared first on GamesBeat.
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