10 ms·

The Man Behind “Fortnite”

226 points by forgingahead 7y ago

noir_lord 7y ago
The article covers that in many ways Fortnite is a social network and that's certainly true in my house. My step-son often jumps on to talk to the friends he has at school or where his father lives, often he just finds a corner of a room and hunkers down he's not actively playing (though he does of course do that as well). In a strange way epic has made a compelling second life by focusing on the game playing aspect first. With the creation tools they have, it'd be interesting to see what would happen if players could make their own maps that where shareable so others could visit.
- xwdv 7y ago
  Some players will even just gather around without shooting or killing each other to talk or mess around or whatever.
  - wingerlang 7y ago
    How does this work out with the map continuously shrinking?
    - sc11 7y ago
      There's a playground/sandbox mode. You can also do it in the normal BR mode. It takes a few minutes until the circle starts shrinking and it shrinks in multiple phases, so you have 5-10min (more if you're lucky) to just mess around before it gets too small.
- cheez 7y ago
  > With the creation tools they have, it'd be interesting to see what would happen if players could make their own maps that where shareable so others could visit. This already exists, called creative mode. My son and his friends play this all the time - they even planned a sleepover party for 10 kids around it.
- acpetrov 7y ago
  I graduated high school 5 years ago, and in that generation (of video game culture) our social game was League of Legends. Everyone was always online. Ya, we liked the game, some even cared about their rank, but the beauty was playing with all your friends and talking over Skype. I'm glad that kids have the opportunity to be social in a time where technology often makes us lonelier
- ehsankia 7y ago
  Good to hear that this is still the case. Back in the days, games felt so much more community based, with persistent servers you would go back to day after day to hang out with the same set of people. With the rise of quick match and match making, it felt like that was dying, and communities are instead pulling into Twitch and Discord instead. Some of my closest online friends were made in online games, so it's good that newer games still allow for that.
orliesaurus 7y ago
Fortnite was initially a huge flop - it wasn't free to begin with - I played the alpha and beta, the game was basically a boring PvE (player versus environment) building. Minecraft with better graphics. Users had to build "bases" with material to prevent zombies over-running them when they spawned and attacked you. A little bit like RUST (another game not the programming language) - except the raids in this case are usually done by humans, raiding for resources other players' stocks inside bases. Then somehow out of the blue - Fortnite became huge: they did a Battle Royale mode, which was free to play, and compared to the competition, the game ran smoothly on almost any PC using it. This coupled with its young cartoony look like League of Legends and riding the Battle Royale hype without the realism, helped surely fuel it. Let's not forget that Tim - the man behind Fortnite - is also the man behind Unreal, Unreal Tournament (huge RIP Unreal Tournament and its fanbase - that's another story not many would wanna know about now ), Paragon (another RIP and an angry fanbase) and the Unreal engine, which is Epic Game's biggest asset after Fortnite ( actually I have no data to compare what makes Epic Games more money, Unreal Engine or Fortnite at this time) P.S. If you're into this stuff also look up Cliff Bleszinski / Cliffy B: he's another big name from the Unreal scene but retired from Epic Games when Tencent bought a huge stake and "peaced out' from the scene after his career flopped when he tried to do solo projects.
- zootam 7y ago
  > Cliff Bleszinski / Cliffy B: he's another big name from the Unreal scene but retired from Epic Games and "peaced out' after his career flops. Cliffy B was an early investor in Oculus. He put a lot of money into Lawbreakers which flopped.
- mdorazio 7y ago
  > they did a Battle Royale mode, which was free to play Let's be honest here, it's more accurate to say they saw the massive popularity of PubG, copied the gameplay mode, and made it free in a transparent attempt to boost a failing game and get in front of the PubG juggernaut. The initial version of Fortnite BR wasn't that great, it was just free. Where the Fortnite team really did a good job was taking that initial BR version and turning it into something with huge global appeal and continuing fresh content to keep players engaged for multiple years.
mattnewport 7y ago
> Here, character Cuddle Team Leader, left, and Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney. I'm glad they clarified that, I wasn't sure which was which for a moment.
gist 7y ago
Off topic question for gamers (I know zero about gaming literally). Is the natural rise and fall of a game an artifact of the result of experience players getting so good that anyone starting can't make their mark easily against them? Whereby if they go to a new game they get a fresh and less competitive chance of success? (Am I stating this correctly even?)
- dleslie 7y ago
  It's generally tied to the intrinsic and extrinsic rewards. Most super popular games these days have a short skill ceiling and an accessible skill floor; encouraging getting good isn't a major focus of design. If all there is to do is to get achievements and better loot, then players will tire and leave. If there's community, ways to express identity, and so forth, then players will keep each other engaged. Fortnite doubles down on the latter by having an in-game store with time-windowed products and other mechanics that heavily leverage FOMO and social anxiety.
  - david_shaw 7y ago
    > Most super popular games these days have a short skill ceiling and an accessible skill floor; encouraging getting good isn't a major focus of design. What games are you thinking about where this applies? Many of the most popular games with which I'm familiar (Overwatch, PUBG, Starcraft II, DotA, League of Legends, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, etc.) seem to have very high skill ceilings. That is, high-level competitive players in those games are way better than the average gamer. I think a big way these games bring in players/stay current is by having a very active esports scene -- which only really works when you have "pro" quality players. With the exception of time-gated achievement games (most MMOs, for example), the trend I see is a low barrier-to-entry but a very high skill ceiling. One tactic that seems pretty common is to get people in-game quickly (f2p), teach them the core gameplay mechanics, then make it a very time-consuming grind to achieve the highest levels of play.
    - dleslie 7y ago
      You've listed mostly previous generation, or much older, games. Overwatch being somewhat the exception, though I would say it has a very low skill floor and a mediocre skill ceiling. Overwatch is nowhere near the skill ceiling of Quake 3, IMHO. Consider that in Fortnite a junior player can outlive and outlast a seasoned player by avoiding conflict, and score reasonably well. In Pokemon Go and other similar mass market games, skill is an after thought at best; it's all about the balance between engagement with your friends and community and grinding levels and awards; intrinsic versus extrinsic. The prolonged death of arena shooters is the evidence of the importance of skill.
acheron 7y ago
I still think of Tim Sweeney as “the man behind ZZT”.
tln 7y ago
I remember reading this in some articles when Fortnite BR first came out... Unreal engine powered PUBG, which was making 40 million a month then. Epic was getting 5% so that was $2mm per month they went out and cannabalized. PUBG devs were complaining that they couldn't scale Unreal engine to 100 players before that happened, Epic had to prove em wrong. Definitely an interesting change in dynamics from vendor to competitor. When Fortnite BR came out it had much better stability/performance, kid-friendly graphics, but ALSO a really unique, and twitch friendly fighting mechanic with building. Watching good players in a build battle is way more interesting than long range sniping or bad vehicle physics.
markbnj 7y ago
I remember hanging out with Tim back in the late 80's on Compuserve's GAMERS forum. He was doing shareware back then, under the Epic Megagames brand as I recall. There were a lot of people on that forum making shareware games, myself included (MVP Backgammon, released in 1991). One of my distinct memories is that Sweeney was more serious about it, and about the future of games, than most of the rest of us. Guess it paid off!
canada_dry 7y ago
An aside. Has outline.com been handcuffed? Whenever I hit a paywall it used to just be a matter of feeding them the link. Now everything seems to get: "We're sorry, but this URL is not supported by Outline"
- BearsAreCool 7y ago
  I have the same experience.
- runn1ng 7y ago
  I guess they got a few C&D letters and decided it’s not worth the effort.
- w0mbat 7y ago
  I read the article by searching for it on Google News and then clicking through from there. They must have a deal and the WSJ checks the referrer.
- 3xblah 7y ago
  Adding ?mod=rsswn to the end of the URL delivers the full article, for now. No need for Outline. This submission added it for you.
cletus 7y ago
Like it or not, you have to really respect the product execution with Fortnite. Even with hiccups (and there have been and continue to be hiccups) the speed and execution is honestly nothing short of breathtaking. IMHO there have been 9 key factors to Fortnite's success: 1. They didn't go for a "military" motif (think Call of Duty, PUBG, etc). Instead they chose whimsy, basically. This gives almost limitless possibilities for skins and in-game themes. Instead of just changing the colour of weapons and combat fatigues, you can be a banana (the article mentions this), John Wick, Marshmello, a chicken (the Tender Defender, which is just an amazing name) and so on. This provides an endless supply of skins people can buy. They also (wisely) chose to have limited customization slots (from memory, glider, trails, skin, back bling, harvester and weapons rather than, say, left boot, right boot, left leg, right leg, etc). 2. Further to (1), this means pretty much anything can be put in the game and it "fits". Earlier this year, Sea of Thieves kind of blew up on Twitch for a couple of months. Next Fortnite season there were pirates, a pirate ship, cannons you could shoot yourself across the map with, etc. Coincidence? I think not. 3. There is only one map. I saw PUBG added new maps. Huge mistake. HUGE. This just splits the player base. It meant (in PUBG at least) people would back out if they didn't get on the map they wanted. The alternative of selecting map still splits the player base. Instead, Fortnite has one map that constantly changes. 4. Another way to keep things fresh: LTMs. The Floor is Lava is a relatively recent example of this. 5. The first FPSs had static maps. Think CSGO or Rainbow 6 as recent(ish) examples. This leads to players who know the map camping a spot where they can kill you with a pixel shot to the big toe when you walk by. Then came destructible environments, which seem like a good idea, but they quickly devolve into static maps as the environment is destroyed. Fortnite has both destructible elements and the ability to build. The parallels to Minecraft are apt. This was a real innovation in a shooter. 6. It being free-to-play with purchases being purely cosmetic so it's not a pay-to-win game ("pay-to-flex" is probably a good way to describe what Fortnite is). 7. You can't just log on and buy "everything". There are challenges. Items are available only for a limited time. Certain items are thus rare (eg the original Skull Trooper). It really encourages constant play. 8. The creator code program so people (ie streamers) would push the item shop. 9. It's a game that's entertaining to watch and isn't too short. Personally I've watched a lot on Twitch and I don't even play the game. How nuts is that? Something will eventually come along to replace Fortnite. I'm not sure this will happen anytime soon. I also suspect you won't see something that so singularly occupies mindshare like Fortnite so a long time to come.
archagon 7y ago
I'd love to know how people like Sweeny and Carmack were able to transition from engine programmers to effective CEOs/CTOs of massive corporations. As monkish, introverted engineers, it surely would have required drastic changes in mindset and personality over the years. What steps were involved? Is there any advice to be gleamed for introverts who wish to become better leaders?
- btown 7y ago
  I’ve heard great things about https://www.amazon.com/Managers-Path-Leaders-Navigating-Growth-ebook/dp/B06XP3GJ7F https://www.amazon.com/Managers-Path-Leaders-Navigating-Grow... as a general set of advice. The Rands leadership Slack is also a great community.
- kodz4 7y ago
  Usually they get propped into leadership positions when they have a track record of getting others to "dream more, do more, become more". Engineers as a breed usually run to mgmt/blame mgmt when they can't get their brethren to do things. So when an engineer shows up, who can get other engineers to follow, then that's one special unicorn you take care off, protect and support.
- whatever_dude 7y ago
  I question how much of that transition they made though. They ARE decision makers by virtue of their knowledge and seniority, but they are not people managers. They still work mostly on technical problems (either as a lead or doing research). And from the little I read online, they strongly shun the managerial aspects of their positions, letting someone else deal with anything non-technical or that is not a personal pet peeve of them. In many modern tech companies they'd instead be a (pretty powerful) VP of something and let someone else be the C*O to deal with the people/managerial aspects of the company.
wingflapper 7y ago
As he says, the team is behind fornite and the environment he fostered is responsible for it. Unreal was the same - so groundbreaking during its time that just a great vision was not going to bring something that complicated to life.
- slfnflctd 7y ago
  I remember being absolutely floored when Unreal came out. I was in awe of that team and still am. No one else was anywhere near them at the time in terms of immersive feel and art design, in my opinion. It's also one of the few FPS games I've encountered where, for several years, I felt like I could play it almost indefinitely (that is, in what little free time I had). It directly drove at least two major system upgrades. Everything's different now, of course, but if they came out with another single player campaign in that universe I would pick it up without a second thought.
MarkMc 7y ago
Interesting that an unmarried guy with no kids can be in charge of a product that is so popular with kids.
- cheez 7y ago
  Or maybe he's closer to a kid who was never forced to grow up.
martamorena 7y ago
It was for sure all premeditated. Like you know... "Hey guys, we need to earn some serious cash now, so let's stop screwing around and wank ourselves off on some stupid games only we like... Let's build some serious shit for once." And whops. There we go. Good old Tim stopped wanking to Day-Z and got some shit done, all on his own. Not to mention that Epic Games is pile of crap now that they released this game. It was once a nice company to work work for, now its just the same shitty sweat shop like any other gaming company, who only sees bottom lines and milking customers... And employees.
z3phyr 7y ago
Tim Sweeney is a huge programming language nerd. He privately experiments with functional programming, dependent types, stm and code gen. EDIT: Removed possible demeaning sentence
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

226 points by forgingahead 7y ago

The article covers that in many ways Fortnite is a social network and that's certainly true in my house. My step-son often jumps on to talk to the friends he has at school or where his father lives, often he just finds a corner of a room and hunkers down he's not actively playing (though he does of course do that as well). In a strange way epic has made a compelling second life by focusing on the game playing aspect first. With the creation tools they have, it'd be interesting to see what would happen if players could make their own maps that where shareable so others could visit.

xwdv 7y ago
Some players will even just gather around without shooting or killing each other to talk or mess around or whatever.
- wingerlang 7y ago
  How does this work out with the map continuously shrinking?
  - sc11 7y ago
    There's a playground/sandbox mode. You can also do it in the normal BR mode. It takes a few minutes until the circle starts shrinking and it shrinks in multiple phases, so you have 5-10min (more if you're lucky) to just mess around before it gets too small.
cheez 7y ago
> With the creation tools they have, it'd be interesting to see what would happen if players could make their own maps that where shareable so others could visit. This already exists, called creative mode. My son and his friends play this all the time - they even planned a sleepover party for 10 kids around it.
acpetrov 7y ago
I graduated high school 5 years ago, and in that generation (of video game culture) our social game was League of Legends. Everyone was always online. Ya, we liked the game, some even cared about their rank, but the beauty was playing with all your friends and talking over Skype. I'm glad that kids have the opportunity to be social in a time where technology often makes us lonelier
ehsankia 7y ago
Good to hear that this is still the case. Back in the days, games felt so much more community based, with persistent servers you would go back to day after day to hang out with the same set of people. With the rise of quick match and match making, it felt like that was dying, and communities are instead pulling into Twitch and Discord instead. Some of my closest online friends were made in online games, so it's good that newer games still allow for that.

orliesaurus 7y ago

Fortnite was initially a huge flop - it wasn't free to begin with - I played the alpha and beta, the game was basically a boring PvE (player versus environment) building. Minecraft with better graphics. Users had to build "bases" with material to prevent zombies over-running them when they spawned and attacked you. A little bit like RUST (another game not the programming language) - except the raids in this case are usually done by humans, raiding for resources other players' stocks inside bases. Then somehow out of the blue - Fortnite became huge: they did a Battle Royale mode, which was free to play, and compared to the competition, the game ran smoothly on almost any PC using it. This coupled with its young cartoony look like League of Legends and riding the Battle Royale hype without the realism, helped surely fuel it. Let's not forget that Tim - the man behind Fortnite - is also the man behind Unreal, Unreal Tournament (huge RIP Unreal Tournament and its fanbase - that's another story not many would wanna know about now ), Paragon (another RIP and an angry fanbase) and the Unreal engine, which is Epic Game's biggest asset after Fortnite ( actually I have no data to compare what makes Epic Games more money, Unreal Engine or Fortnite at this time) P.S. If you're into this stuff also look up Cliff Bleszinski / Cliffy B: he's another big name from the Unreal scene but retired from Epic Games when Tencent bought a huge stake and "peaced out' from the scene after his career flopped when he tried to do solo projects.

zootam 7y ago
> Cliff Bleszinski / Cliffy B: he's another big name from the Unreal scene but retired from Epic Games and "peaced out' after his career flops. Cliffy B was an early investor in Oculus. He put a lot of money into Lawbreakers which flopped.
mdorazio 7y ago
> they did a Battle Royale mode, which was free to play Let's be honest here, it's more accurate to say they saw the massive popularity of PubG, copied the gameplay mode, and made it free in a transparent attempt to boost a failing game and get in front of the PubG juggernaut. The initial version of Fortnite BR wasn't that great, it was just free. Where the Fortnite team really did a good job was taking that initial BR version and turning it into something with huge global appeal and continuing fresh content to keep players engaged for multiple years.

mattnewport 7y ago

> Here, character Cuddle Team Leader, left, and Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney. I'm glad they clarified that, I wasn't sure which was which for a moment.

gist 7y ago

Off topic question for gamers (I know zero about gaming literally). Is the natural rise and fall of a game an artifact of the result of experience players getting so good that anyone starting can't make their mark easily against them? Whereby if they go to a new game they get a fresh and less competitive chance of success? (Am I stating this correctly even?)

dleslie 7y ago
It's generally tied to the intrinsic and extrinsic rewards. Most super popular games these days have a short skill ceiling and an accessible skill floor; encouraging getting good isn't a major focus of design. If all there is to do is to get achievements and better loot, then players will tire and leave. If there's community, ways to express identity, and so forth, then players will keep each other engaged. Fortnite doubles down on the latter by having an in-game store with time-windowed products and other mechanics that heavily leverage FOMO and social anxiety.
- david_shaw 7y ago
  > Most super popular games these days have a short skill ceiling and an accessible skill floor; encouraging getting good isn't a major focus of design. What games are you thinking about where this applies? Many of the most popular games with which I'm familiar (Overwatch, PUBG, Starcraft II, DotA, League of Legends, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, etc.) seem to have very high skill ceilings. That is, high-level competitive players in those games are way better than the average gamer. I think a big way these games bring in players/stay current is by having a very active esports scene -- which only really works when you have "pro" quality players. With the exception of time-gated achievement games (most MMOs, for example), the trend I see is a low barrier-to-entry but a very high skill ceiling. One tactic that seems pretty common is to get people in-game quickly (f2p), teach them the core gameplay mechanics, then make it a very time-consuming grind to achieve the highest levels of play.
  - dleslie 7y ago
    You've listed mostly previous generation, or much older, games. Overwatch being somewhat the exception, though I would say it has a very low skill floor and a mediocre skill ceiling. Overwatch is nowhere near the skill ceiling of Quake 3, IMHO. Consider that in Fortnite a junior player can outlive and outlast a seasoned player by avoiding conflict, and score reasonably well. In Pokemon Go and other similar mass market games, skill is an after thought at best; it's all about the balance between engagement with your friends and community and grinding levels and awards; intrinsic versus extrinsic. The prolonged death of arena shooters is the evidence of the importance of skill.

acheron 7y ago

I still think of Tim Sweeney as “the man behind ZZT”.

tln 7y ago

I remember reading this in some articles when Fortnite BR first came out... Unreal engine powered PUBG, which was making 40 million a month then. Epic was getting 5% so that was $2mm per month they went out and cannabalized. PUBG devs were complaining that they couldn't scale Unreal engine to 100 players before that happened, Epic had to prove em wrong. Definitely an interesting change in dynamics from vendor to competitor. When Fortnite BR came out it had much better stability/performance, kid-friendly graphics, but ALSO a really unique, and twitch friendly fighting mechanic with building. Watching good players in a build battle is way more interesting than long range sniping or bad vehicle physics.

markbnj 7y ago

I remember hanging out with Tim back in the late 80's on Compuserve's GAMERS forum. He was doing shareware back then, under the Epic Megagames brand as I recall. There were a lot of people on that forum making shareware games, myself included (MVP Backgammon, released in 1991). One of my distinct memories is that Sweeney was more serious about it, and about the future of games, than most of the rest of us. Guess it paid off!

canada_dry 7y ago

An aside. Has outline.com been handcuffed? Whenever I hit a paywall it used to just be a matter of feeding them the link. Now everything seems to get: "We're sorry, but this URL is not supported by Outline"

BearsAreCool 7y ago
I have the same experience.
runn1ng 7y ago
I guess they got a few C&D letters and decided it’s not worth the effort.
w0mbat 7y ago
I read the article by searching for it on Google News and then clicking through from there. They must have a deal and the WSJ checks the referrer.
3xblah 7y ago
Adding ?mod=rsswn to the end of the URL delivers the full article, for now. No need for Outline. This submission added it for you.

cletus 7y ago

Like it or not, you have to really respect the product execution with Fortnite. Even with hiccups (and there have been and continue to be hiccups) the speed and execution is honestly nothing short of breathtaking. IMHO there have been 9 key factors to Fortnite's success: 1. They didn't go for a "military" motif (think Call of Duty, PUBG, etc). Instead they chose whimsy, basically. This gives almost limitless possibilities for skins and in-game themes. Instead of just changing the colour of weapons and combat fatigues, you can be a banana (the article mentions this), John Wick, Marshmello, a chicken (the Tender Defender, which is just an amazing name) and so on. This provides an endless supply of skins people can buy. They also (wisely) chose to have limited customization slots (from memory, glider, trails, skin, back bling, harvester and weapons rather than, say, left boot, right boot, left leg, right leg, etc). 2. Further to (1), this means pretty much anything can be put in the game and it "fits". Earlier this year, Sea of Thieves kind of blew up on Twitch for a couple of months. Next Fortnite season there were pirates, a pirate ship, cannons you could shoot yourself across the map with, etc. Coincidence? I think not. 3. There is only one map. I saw PUBG added new maps. Huge mistake. HUGE. This just splits the player base. It meant (in PUBG at least) people would back out if they didn't get on the map they wanted. The alternative of selecting map still splits the player base. Instead, Fortnite has one map that constantly changes. 4. Another way to keep things fresh: LTMs. The Floor is Lava is a relatively recent example of this. 5. The first FPSs had static maps. Think CSGO or Rainbow 6 as recent(ish) examples. This leads to players who know the map camping a spot where they can kill you with a pixel shot to the big toe when you walk by. Then came destructible environments, which seem like a good idea, but they quickly devolve into static maps as the environment is destroyed. Fortnite has both destructible elements and the ability to build. The parallels to Minecraft are apt. This was a real innovation in a shooter. 6. It being free-to-play with purchases being purely cosmetic so it's not a pay-to-win game ("pay-to-flex" is probably a good way to describe what Fortnite is). 7. You can't just log on and buy "everything". There are challenges. Items are available only for a limited time. Certain items are thus rare (eg the original Skull Trooper). It really encourages constant play. 8. The creator code program so people (ie streamers) would push the item shop. 9. It's a game that's entertaining to watch and isn't too short. Personally I've watched a lot on Twitch and I don't even play the game. How nuts is that? Something will eventually come along to replace Fortnite. I'm not sure this will happen anytime soon. I also suspect you won't see something that so singularly occupies mindshare like Fortnite so a long time to come.

archagon 7y ago

I'd love to know how people like Sweeny and Carmack were able to transition from engine programmers to effective CEOs/CTOs of massive corporations. As monkish, introverted engineers, it surely would have required drastic changes in mindset and personality over the years. What steps were involved? Is there any advice to be gleamed for introverts who wish to become better leaders?

btown 7y ago
I’ve heard great things about https://www.amazon.com/Managers-Path-Leaders-Navigating-Growth-ebook/dp/B06XP3GJ7F https://www.amazon.com/Managers-Path-Leaders-Navigating-Grow... as a general set of advice. The Rands leadership Slack is also a great community.
kodz4 7y ago
Usually they get propped into leadership positions when they have a track record of getting others to "dream more, do more, become more". Engineers as a breed usually run to mgmt/blame mgmt when they can't get their brethren to do things. So when an engineer shows up, who can get other engineers to follow, then that's one special unicorn you take care off, protect and support.
whatever_dude 7y ago
I question how much of that transition they made though. They ARE decision makers by virtue of their knowledge and seniority, but they are not people managers. They still work mostly on technical problems (either as a lead or doing research). And from the little I read online, they strongly shun the managerial aspects of their positions, letting someone else deal with anything non-technical or that is not a personal pet peeve of them. In many modern tech companies they'd instead be a (pretty powerful) VP of something and let someone else be the C*O to deal with the people/managerial aspects of the company.

wingflapper 7y ago

As he says, the team is behind fornite and the environment he fostered is responsible for it. Unreal was the same - so groundbreaking during its time that just a great vision was not going to bring something that complicated to life.

slfnflctd 7y ago
I remember being absolutely floored when Unreal came out. I was in awe of that team and still am. No one else was anywhere near them at the time in terms of immersive feel and art design, in my opinion. It's also one of the few FPS games I've encountered where, for several years, I felt like I could play it almost indefinitely (that is, in what little free time I had). It directly drove at least two major system upgrades. Everything's different now, of course, but if they came out with another single player campaign in that universe I would pick it up without a second thought.

MarkMc 7y ago

Interesting that an unmarried guy with no kids can be in charge of a product that is so popular with kids.

cheez 7y ago
Or maybe he's closer to a kid who was never forced to grow up.

martamorena 7y ago

It was for sure all premeditated. Like you know... "Hey guys, we need to earn some serious cash now, so let's stop screwing around and wank ourselves off on some stupid games only we like... Let's build some serious shit for once." And whops. There we go. Good old Tim stopped wanking to Day-Z and got some shit done, all on his own. Not to mention that Epic Games is pile of crap now that they released this game. It was once a nice company to work work for, now its just the same shitty sweat shop like any other gaming company, who only sees bottom lines and milking customers... And employees.

z3phyr 7y ago

Tim Sweeney is a huge programming language nerd. He privately experiments with functional programming, dependent types, stm and code gen. EDIT: Removed possible demeaning sentence

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]