Items tagged with Epic
"Epic" might be the best word to describe what's sure to be a prolonged, dramatic court battle between gaming heavyweight Epic Games and iOS App Store walled garden builder Apple. By now you're familiar with the somewhat sneaky direct payment method Epic hid from Apple inside the iOS version of Fortnite during the review process. Following Apple's subsequent removal of Fortnite from the app store and ultimately a termination of Epic's developer contract, the developer has struck back. Epic has asked the U.S. District Court of Northern to step in and force Apple to roll back what the Unreal creator calls "Apple's retaliation" to prop up its iOS App Store monopoly. The developer's filing states...
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Yesterday, we brought you news that Valve's Steam Summer Sale is scheduled to kick off on June 25th according to leaked information. The upstart Epic Games Store is taking more than a few cues from Valve in how it operates its own storefront, and today has announced its first "epic" sales on digital games. Epic is labeling the promotion the "Mega Sale" and it is offering games at up to 75 percent off their regular price. In addition, the Mega Sale ensures that every game priced $14.99 or above is being discount by $10. So, if a regularly priced title was previously available for $14.99, you'll pay just $4.99 today. According to Epic, the $10 off promotion only applies...
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When it come to its mega-hit Fortnite, Epic ties to keep details surrounding the game and upcoming features pretty close to the vest. That's why Epic is not at all pleased about the alleged leak of Fortnite information by quality assurance contractor Thomas Hannah. The information was leaked via reddit and confirmed where exactly the comet that was spied in the skies over Tilted Towers would strike. Since the comet was over Tilted Towers, gamers thought that was the target. The true target was Dusty Depot (turning it into Dusty Divot) and Hannah is said to have worked with a third-party to leak that information. Interestingly, the third party isn’t listed in the suit. Epic considered...
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Predicting the level of success enjoyed by PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds, aka PUBG, would have been very tough ahead of its launch. Who could really predict that an indie title would have three million concurrent players mere months after its launch? Since that time, the game has added two new maps, alternating modes, and more aesthetic enhancements than you can shake a frying pan at. Unfortunately for developer PUBG Corporation, the game has been on the decline ever since the start of the year, despite the team rolling out of the new maps and mechanics. The website Steam Charts shows that in January, the game hit its absolute peak concurrent players, at 3.2 million, a massive gain of 100%...
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Fortnite is perhaps the most popular game in the world at the moment thanks to its accessibility (it's available for PC, Mac, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, iOS), immersive gameplay and constant updates. Now, one major platform that has previously been left out will finally be able to join in on the fun. In a "State of Mobile" blog post this morning, Epic Games announced that Fortnite will be coming to Android this summer. This is simply a "targeted" date, so the release could slip. However, the fact that it is in fact coming should be music to the ears of gamers using the world's most dominant mobile operating system. In addition to the good news for Android users, Epic announced that it will allow...
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Fortnite is an incredibly popular multiplayer sandbox survival game, which also means that it has a big red target painted on its back due to its huge install base. Fortnite's vulnerability to attacks has become more visible in recent weeks as players began discovering that their accounts had been compromised. Apparently, hackers have found a way to infiltrate Epic Games accounts and rack of hundreds of dollars (or more) in purchases using an attached credit card through PayPal. Luckily for some of the Fornite victims, that have been able to obtain direct assistance from Epic Games. "Have to give Epic some credit. Someone logged in to my account and bought the Ultimate upgrade (had PayPal tied...
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Earlier this week, WhatsApp made the surprising move to begin sharing user information with its parent company, Facebook. WhatsApp's original stated goal was to know “as little about you as possible”, but that mantra seems to have been thrown out the window in an effort to further increases Facebook’s booming mobile ad revenue. WhatsApp didn’t make any qualms about the benefits of such a move, writing on Thursday, “By connecting your phone number with Facebook's systems, Facebook can offer better friend suggestions and show you more relevant ads if you have an account with them. For example, you might see an ad from a company you already work with, rather than one from someone you've never heard...
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We hear about hacks and attacks on web services all of the time, and often, there's a big reason behind it. The attackers either want to fetch information for their financial gain, or just to simply cause havoc. In this latest case involving Epic Games' forums, it appears to be the latter. In a new blog post, Epic says that it believes its Unreal Engine and Unreal Tournament forums have been compromised, with the attackers gaining access to email addresses and other information. Fortunately, no passwords were included, whether salted or not. This points to a smart design: while the bulk of the information was stored in a singular database, the passwords were kept separate. Other companies hosting...
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Before its release in April 1998, it was clear that Unreal would make a big impact on the PC gaming market. At that time, the Nintendo 64 was the most graphically impressive console, only to be outdone by the Sega Dreamcast a year later. Around this period of time, PC graphics were improving at such a rapid rate, that it seemed like each new GPU generation actually did give you an enormous increase in fidelity. Let's throw some nostalgic at you. A mere month before Unreal hit the store shelves (remember when PC games were found at retail?), 3dfx Interactive released its much-anticipated Voodoo2. At around the same time, NVIDIA released its Riva128ZX and Riva TNT. At this point, AMD (then ATI)...
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When we learned earlier this week that Microsoft would be bringing Forza Motorsport to Windows, it was hard to not feel excited. Well, at least for those racing fans who call the PC home and have loathed the fact that the series never broke free from the Xbox. Forza is just the beginning, as Microsoft promised that all of its self-published Xbox One games will come to the PC. That would seem like a great thing. Or is it? In an opinion piece written for UK's The Guardian, Epic founder Tim Sweeney explains why Microsoft's initiative is not as great as it sounds on paper. The problems are tied to Microsoft's new Universal Windows Platform (UWP), which is a new platform for game publishing. This...
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Red Digital Cinema is a big name in the professional camera market, and the company’s cameras have been used in films like Avengers: Age of Ultron, Jurassic World, and the upcoming Matt Damon-helmed flick, The Martian. But not every producer can afford Red’s mega-expensive cameras to shoot films that will end up grossing hundred of millions of dollars at the box office. So the company has announced the Raven, which is a much more affordable camera that while still out of reach for most consumers, is within reason for indie filmmakers. The 3.5-pound Raven uses an 8.8 MP Red Dragon image sensor, which is based on the same sensor that you’ll find in the $29,000 Epic camera. The Raven is capable...
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Find yourself wondering how development on the newest Unreal Tournament is coming along? It just so happens that Epic Games posted video footage of its upcoming first person shooter to YouTube, which offers up a limited look at Unreal Tournament's first-ever Deathmatch game play. Things are pretty basic at the moment, though coming along. The new Unreal Tournament is being built around Unreal Engine 4. Epic Games has promised that it will be a collaborative effort between the developers and community. "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," Steve...
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Sure, on some levels, it's arguably sacrilegious to use a popular and powerful 3D game engine to create a Flappy Bird clone. But then again, Flappy Bird was netting its developer $50,000 per day through in-game ads before he did addicted gamers a solid by removing the app (it's coming back this summer, by the way). Besides, there's a bigger reason why Epic -- yes, Epic, the same company that developed Unreal Tournament and Infinity Blade -- built Tappy Chicken. "Tappy Chicken is the perfect showcase for the ease of use and flexibility of Unreal Engine 4," Epic explains. "While it may not flex the full graphical muscle of the engine, it shows how almost anyone can make a fun and pretty game fit...
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Epic has confirmed what it teased earlier this week, which is that they’re making a new “Unreal Tournament”. “The coolest thing is not just that we’re making a new ‘Unreal Tournament’”, said senior project programmer Steve Polge in a video. “We’re planning on doing it in close collaboration with you, with the community.” Epic is seeking input from developers and gamers alike. “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,” wrote Polge in a blog post. You can create a free account...
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We’ve been covering Unreal Engine 4 aplenty, but in one post from several weeks ago, our Rob Williams remarked, “At this point, the only thing that could make me more excited for UE4 games to get here is if one of them happened to be Unreal Tournament 4.” Today’s a good day for Rob, because that’s what’s happening. Epic Games’ VP Mark Rein as well as Paul Meegan announced on Twitter that the future of Unreal Tournament would be revealed this Thursday at 2pm on Twitch. Rein further clarified things a bit, tweeting “I love #UnrealTournament - So excited for the comeback!” It would certainly make sense to bring back UT, as it would be an ideal...
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We’ve had more than one look at Unreal Engine 4 demos, and they look amazing; with the upcoming Unreal Engine 4.1 update, though, Epic is adding support for more platforms. “We have good news for you! The 4.1 source code has initial support for running and packaging games for Linux and SteamOS. We love Linux!”, wrote Epic’s Mike Fricker in a blog post. That’s good news for the gaming ecosystem at large. Epic will also henceforth be rolling out regular Unreal Engine 4 updates, including hotfixes, new content, general improvements, and more. Regular engine preview builds and live source code access are in the offing, as well. Finally, Epic also announced that it’s...
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It's not uncommon to see a new game title come out that touts that the "best" experience will be on either AMD's or NVIDIA's (or Intel's in rarer cases) GPUs, but it is uncommon to see a game engine as a whole being given the nod by its developer to one or the other. In this case, the engine is Unreal Engine 4, and it s developer, Epic Games. At the ongoing Game Developers Conference, Epic announced a new licensing program for UE4, and its expanded support for Android. Overall, UE4 promises some amazing things, and if anyone out there has ever run the Citadel UE3 demo on mobile, you can probably get an idea of what's to come - graphics that are closer to PC levels than ever before. Epic also...
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The team behind the exciting Oculus Rift virtual reality headset is hard at work and demoed a prototype 1080p HD version of its flagship product at E3 this week. “Raising the resolution for the consumer Rift has always been one of the highest priorities,” wrote the team in a blog post. They say that the higher-res version will double the number of visible pixels and generally enhance the immersion factor of the image. The image’s brightness, contrast, and color will also enjoy a notable improvement. Although this prototype may not be what we see in the final, consumer-ready version of the Oculus Rift, developers can continue to create for the headset without worry, as the team...
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Epic gave us all a sneak peak at the next generation of gaming with the release of its “Infiltrator” demo built with Unreal Engine 4, which looks terrific. Revealed at the GDC, the demo is running on a lone GeForce GTX 680, which is no less impressive than the demo itself. For the happy gamer, Unreal Engine 4 offers plenty of new features, which NVIDIA set forth on its GeForce website: -New material layering system, which provides unprecedented detail on characters and objects -Dynamically lit particles, which can emit and receive light -High-quality temporal anti-aliasing, eliminating jagged edges and temporal aliasing -Thousands of dynamic lights with tiled deferred shading -Adaptive...
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It’s been a busy week for Unreal Engine 3; and now, Oculus announced that it has partnered with Epic Games to release a special Unreal Development Kit (UDK) that’s ready for the Oculus Rift. It’s coming for free to all developers along with Oculus integration. “With the Oculus-ready version of the UDK, you’ll be able to start building incredible VR experiences with the Unreal Engine toolset the moment you receive your Rift development kit (or even right now, if you’re so inclined),” said Oculus founder Palmer Luckey in a blog post. Hawken demo with Oculus Rift The UDK will be available from the Oculus Development Center in April, and it will include some...
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There’s no doubt that gaming on the Web has improved dramatically in recent years, but Mozilla believes it has developed new technology that will deliver a big leap in what browser-based gaming can become. The company developed a highly-optimized version of Javascript that’s designed to “supercharge” a game’s code to deliver near-native performance, and now that innovation has enabled Mozilla to bring Epic’s Unreal Engine 3 to the browser. “With this port, developers will soon be able to explore limitless possibilities when it comes to porting their popular gaming titles to the Web,” reads a Mozilla blog post. BananaBread Demo Screenshot - OpenGL-based...
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Before you read any further, be sure you have a clean pair of underpants to change into, because this is the sort of thing that can make you soil yourself in excitement. Lest you think we're being absurd, consider that NVIDIA just put the smackdown on those who doubt its upcoming Kepler architecture will be anything but awesome by allowing its next-generation GPU to make a surprise appearance at Epic's panel session during the Game Developer Conference (GDC). While there, Epic demonstrated that it's possible to run its grueling Unreal Engine 3 tech demo called "Samaritan" on a single Kepler-based graphics card. Why is that impressive? "Samaritan has been regarded as a look into the distant...
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