- cross-posted to:
- games@sh.itjust.works
- cross-posted to:
- games@sh.itjust.works
Excerpts:
… The news came from Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney himself in a presentation at Unreal Fest 2023. …
… He claimed that the pricing model will not be “unusually expensive or unusually inexpensive,” and that its pricing structure will be similar to subscription services like Maya or Photoshop. …
Why do game engine producers feel the need to increase prices so much currently?
Probably because most devs stopped making their own proprietary engines, so the supply for solid engines is at an all time low. With less options they can crank up the price, as there aren’t really any other options for most devs.
Haha Godot go brrrrrrr
Hopefully Godot is the first of many
There are a lot of game engines out there. Godot is a good engine if you’re jumping from Unity because it’s a lot more similar to Unity than some other engines and they both can use C#.
It’s great that Godot is growing
But if it would have been pretty funny if it was vaporware
Most devs never would have made their own proprietary engines. With ready availability of engines to use, the number of developers skyrocketed as it lowered the bar of who can make a game.
Because like all the tech industry, they grew massively on the back of low interest rates since 2008 where investors saw better returns putting money into companies than sitting on it, now the interest rates have shot up again post Covid, they need to show their investors they can make better returns than the 5%+ they’d make just leaving the money in the bank. Hence the cost cutting by sacking staff and gouging of customers by price increases.
Same reason everyone else is pivoting to profitability. Interest rates and loan servicing.
Or taking advantage of that happenning with the competition, to enhance profitability.
Make money is the point of pretty much all companies, and financially there are only 2 thinks stopping them from upping their prices:
Anyways, the point being that if there is a broader shift in pricing in the market, even companies that are not under the same financial pressures to up prices will still do it as the 1st of those price limitation is relaxed so they can make more money.
capitalism
Capitalism is becoming unbearable. People are getting squeezed from every side.
This is particularly for people using the engine to write film rending software which gets bought one for a lot of money but low volume, and gets used as a huge cost savings for mid-high end production that can save on lighting and comp passes or even render time.
High volume software(games) probably won’t change much at all.
Or at least that’s what SHOULD be happening.
Everyone wants to be part of the " big squeeze " that’s going on.
If anything, in this case it seems like a loophole they’re closing more than a price increase.
Why should Hollywood studios making billions get to use Unreal Engine for free, being subsidized by gamers?
As recession looms, you have general inflation and increased interest rates. This affects overhead and loan repayments. That and probably other factors all contribute to the need to raise prices.
It’s not just the gaming sector. Almost all other sectors are raising their prices or adjusting their service plans. Eg. shrinkflation and/or lower quality on products and services.
Because China is increasingly looking broke, so daddy Tencent’s purse is tightening.
On top of that, the world’s banks now have interest rates to look after again, so their free money streams have ended too. Meaning that companies have to prove their profitability.
But the rich want to keep their free money train going, so we’re all paying now.
Tim Sweeney alone owns 50% of the company, he can pretty much make his own decisions independently from Tencent. Also China is slowly catching up to the US’s GDP with way less government debt, what are you talking about?
US’s debt to GDP ratio has decreased by 13% since 2019. To 77%.
China’s real debt to GDP ratio is estimated to be 335%. (Via the IIF via the SCMP)
Two different things the 335 includes non-government debt like personal mortgages and corporate debt, 77 is federal treasury bonds only.
The most current projections is China will never catch up to US GDP. Just for posterity, China GDP per capita is under $14k, while US is above $80k. There is no conceivable path to closing this gap. Not with an authoritarian in charge who shuts down entire industries on a whim and murders political rivals who disagree with him.