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Love this because it shows two things 1) competent people are handling problems and 2) they actually care. A whole lot better than spoon feeding customers bull

Love this because it shows two things 1) competent people are handling problems and 2) they actually care. A whole lot better than spoon feeding customers bullshit for weeks while hamstringing your product rather than investing in it (looks at EA, mumbles about SimCity).

Thaxll 9y ago
Epic game is not a publicly traded company and there is a lot of things you can say when you're private.
- Grazester 9y ago
  I would have thought it was the opposite way around! Private companies always seem so tight lipped especially being that they dont have to answer to shareholders.
  - Thaxll 9y ago
    You're not going to say to shareholders "please give me your money and also we're looking for expert because we lack expertise in the product we're doing"
- gameswithgo 9y ago
  That is an interesting state of affairs isn't it? Why do we, the world, expect that large, supposedly more professional companies, communicate less honestly?
  - deadbunny 9y ago
    > Why do we, the world, expect that large, supposedly more professional companies, communicate less honestly? Because being honest can hurt the share price.
    - hhmc 9y ago
      Particularly, it can hurt the share price on an horizon over which the C-level execs have their performance measured.
    - aneutron 9y ago
      But if this shows anything, it shows that the company has people who are on stand-by and who constantly monitor and optimize their product. Also, the fact that "the product" they are developing is not a consumable (think processors) there would be no recall cost for example, how can that hurt the shares ?
fhood 9y ago
Lets not labor under the impression that Epic invested resources in fixing these issues purely out of the goodness of their hearts. The success or failure of the recent Sim City game was hardly EA's number one concern. Fortnite, however, is probably extremely important to the folks at Epic. I'm not defending EA here, but it was definitely in Epic's best interests not to piss off Fortnite's player base given that there are some other, ahem, similar titles on the market right now.
- gameswithgo 9y ago
  Why do you think a game that sells for ~$50 was not important to EA, but a game that sells for $0 is extremely important to Epic? Epic is a pretty big operation too.
  - baud147258 9y ago
    For SimCity, most of the sales were already done, so EA could have chosen to do the bare minimum because they would only see small returns for those fix. Whereas for Epic, the business model is different since it's F2P, so they'll need the player to keep coming back so they keep buying stuff.
  - chickenfries 9y ago
    Because Free For All games are really popular right now, and they want their engine (Unreal) to be a competitive choice for these and other massively multiplayer games.
    - 282883392 9y ago
      Unreal is already an extremely competitive choice for multiplayer games (read: the best choice). They are putting resources to solving these problems because they are making millions of dollars from "free" players.
  - compscistd 9y ago
    Unlike EA, Epic does not have a diverse portfolio of games on different devices. EA can absorb a flop while Epic is clearly pushing people to install their PC launcher through their free Battle Royale to get potential customers to pay for their paid content (Fortnite, in-game purchases, other games, etc.)
JohnTHaller 9y ago
1. competent people are handling the problems 2. they actually care 3. they enjoy what they are doing One thing I really miss working solo is working with a team of smart folks to solve a complex problem together. It's so damned fun.
- evanosaurus 9y ago
  These three things (plus your addendum of working together to solve stupidly hard problems) are basically why I love going to work every day. (I work at Epic on Team Online, aka the team that this whole PM is about.)
  - JohnTHaller 9y ago
    Glad to hear you're loving it. And thanks for detailed yet fun write-ups like this. Keep on keeping on!

Thaxll 9y ago

Epic game is not a publicly traded company and there is a lot of things you can say when you're private.

Grazester 9y ago
I would have thought it was the opposite way around! Private companies always seem so tight lipped especially being that they dont have to answer to shareholders.
- Thaxll 9y ago
  You're not going to say to shareholders "please give me your money and also we're looking for expert because we lack expertise in the product we're doing"
gameswithgo 9y ago
That is an interesting state of affairs isn't it? Why do we, the world, expect that large, supposedly more professional companies, communicate less honestly?
- deadbunny 9y ago
  > Why do we, the world, expect that large, supposedly more professional companies, communicate less honestly? Because being honest can hurt the share price.
  - hhmc 9y ago
    Particularly, it can hurt the share price on an horizon over which the C-level execs have their performance measured.
  - aneutron 9y ago
    But if this shows anything, it shows that the company has people who are on stand-by and who constantly monitor and optimize their product. Also, the fact that "the product" they are developing is not a consumable (think processors) there would be no recall cost for example, how can that hurt the shares ?

fhood 9y ago

Lets not labor under the impression that Epic invested resources in fixing these issues purely out of the goodness of their hearts. The success or failure of the recent Sim City game was hardly EA's number one concern. Fortnite, however, is probably extremely important to the folks at Epic. I'm not defending EA here, but it was definitely in Epic's best interests not to piss off Fortnite's player base given that there are some other, ahem, similar titles on the market right now.

gameswithgo 9y ago
Why do you think a game that sells for ~$50 was not important to EA, but a game that sells for $0 is extremely important to Epic? Epic is a pretty big operation too.
- baud147258 9y ago
  For SimCity, most of the sales were already done, so EA could have chosen to do the bare minimum because they would only see small returns for those fix. Whereas for Epic, the business model is different since it's F2P, so they'll need the player to keep coming back so they keep buying stuff.
- chickenfries 9y ago
  Because Free For All games are really popular right now, and they want their engine (Unreal) to be a competitive choice for these and other massively multiplayer games.
  - 282883392 9y ago
    Unreal is already an extremely competitive choice for multiplayer games (read: the best choice). They are putting resources to solving these problems because they are making millions of dollars from "free" players.
- compscistd 9y ago
  Unlike EA, Epic does not have a diverse portfolio of games on different devices. EA can absorb a flop while Epic is clearly pushing people to install their PC launcher through their free Battle Royale to get potential customers to pay for their paid content (Fortnite, in-game purchases, other games, etc.)

JohnTHaller 9y ago

1. competent people are handling the problems 2. they actually care 3. they enjoy what they are doing One thing I really miss working solo is working with a team of smart folks to solve a complex problem together. It's so damned fun.

evanosaurus 9y ago
These three things (plus your addendum of working together to solve stupidly hard problems) are basically why I love going to work every day. (I work at Epic on Team Online, aka the team that this whole PM is about.)
- JohnTHaller 9y ago
  Glad to hear you're loving it. And thanks for detailed yet fun write-ups like this. Keep on keeping on!