Remember when Epic Games was the good guy?
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- čas přidán 19. 06. 2024
- In this 20th anniversary retrospective of Unreal Tournament, we'll dive into the gaming industry as it was 20 years ago and we'll see just how far it's fallen in that time.
This is a sentimental video for me. Maybe I’m just looking at the past with rose-tinted glasses… but I remember when Epic used to be the good guy. But whether it’s nostalgia, or rose-tinted glasses, or what have you, I think it’s pretty clear: the key phrase is “used to be the good guy.”
Stop Killing Games
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About Gardiner Bryant: A native Maine resident, Gardiner (yes, that's his first name) is an enthusiastic Linux evangelist, a believer in the efficacy and superiority of the Free and Open Source way, and President of Heavy Element. Heavy Element offers web design, media production, and CZcams consulting services to individuals and companies in Maine and beyond.
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-- Chapters --
00:00 Introduction
00:27 How Epic became the good guy
01:26 Unreal Tournament 2004
03:28 The Feel of UT2004
04:06 Game Modes
05:03 I used to think of Epic Games as the "Good Guys"
05:57 Games used to be about fun
06:33 Epic's leading the way in regressing the industry
07:06 Know your place, peasant
#unrealtournament #epicgames #20thanniversary #retrospective
Remember when Epic Games was the good guy?
Before Epic Games turned to the DARK SIDE
Remember when Epic wasn't evil? - Věda a technologie
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I still have my UT 99 copy, what a great thing it was. It's despiteful how abandoned Unreal is, not even an effort to preserve the games. One can only but dream Nightdive working on them.
I never had a physical copy of Unreal 2k4, but Unreal 2k3 was one of those rare games that had the Linux installer on Disc 3, and this was 20 years ago!
"You will own nothing and be happy" - brilliant ;-)
It's an ultimatum, not a prediction.
btw you can open the console and type in setres 1920x1080 or 1920x1440 for example. Every console enabled UT game offers this feature to this day
I remember Epic being the good guy as well. I was a huge UT fan because it was available for Linux on day 1. I didn't go fully Linux-only until 2004, but I was mostly Linux starting in the late 90s (and UnixWare before that). Loki Games and Epic were among my favorite companies.
Now, I despise Epic. Every single game they've touched in a significant way has turned to garbage and dropped whatever Linux support they had, if they had any to start with.
UT99 and 2004 are still the best multiplayer FPS to this day IMO, and the vast majority of my time was with bots
I got both games up and running again a few months ago. I'll never tire of them.
The quote "You either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain." applies to Epic bit too well here. Considering the great past Epic certainly has done everything to erase and cover up as much of it as possible.
I'd hate to be "that guy", but none of the current popular live service games will be playable after 10 years from now (let alone 20).
tim sweeney is the biggest hypocrite in the gaming industry, after years of bitching about microsoft monopoly and then suddenly deciding not to port fortnite to linux because of his fit over valve’s steamos and steack deck
Have my copy on GOG and Steam still. Awesome games, specially 2k4
This is what I find funny is epic is doing this whole public act against Apple saying Apple is the bad guy but epic is no better they are just as bad
I think of the saying don’t throw rocks in glass houses
Something epic needs to learn
Although Quake 3 is more professional and I do love the homebrew port to original Xbox and played it like twice (players are missing for regular games), I really enjoyed it, but Unreal Gold, UT99 and UT04 all have something in common and it is world building, great maps and more inclusive of all types of skill levels, while not being casual or going to far. UT04 still blows me away how the big maps and "Enemy Territory Wolfenstein's Assualt" is even more bigger than any game till to this day. I dont want to know what investors might have said, if the game would have come out 10 years later, since all Assault maps are custom made and my favourite one is one in the garbage yard and then the one in the city. Way too much love went into 04 and no console game will ever surpass the amount of content. Even on PC it is like super rare to find one game with such a big amount of mods vs HL1 and similar content size.
hosted a lan party a couple of weeks ago, we fired up UT2004 - good times!
I still play UT99 and 2k4 to this day. Currently on my Steam Deck, preferably on a large TV with mouse & keyboard, but on the Steam Deck itself it works great too with a left stick right trackpad config. Best arena shooters ever made!
A lovely speech. I always liked your content but I'm taken aback a little at this wise rant!
I spent way too many hours on CTF-Face. Such a campers' paradise.
This is a not a video I was expecting to see one day !
Hopefully we can find a bit of this spirit in indie games these days ! I was still waiting about the modern UT reboot, but I think this is something we have to forget…
UT99 was the best but I did enjoy UT2004 for what it was too
Thank you so much for making this video, we needed someone to get properly vocal about all this. I really hope it will get a lot of exposure.
2:40 sounds vaguely like the Run Lola Run soundtrack and now that's stuck in my head. Never played any of the Unreal games before but they're on my list.
Classic. That red hair.
For a long time I had 3.5 inch floppies 0f One Must Fall 2097 along with my copy of Megatech Software's Cobra Mission. I miss those days.
Unreal was and still one of my favorites.
An ex got me to download UT 99 like 4 years back and we had so much fun with it. What a fun game, surprisingly holds up really well once you remap some keys 😁
I owned a LAN center when the demo for UT99 dropped. It was euphoric! It cranked the energy levels of the entire center to a froth. So much adrenaline that spilled over into the physical world, that I had to fix dozens of holes in the walls over those 4 years. I closed in ‘03, but caught a moment of UT’03 before so. While we loved the graphical updates it didn’t grab us like 99 did.
Yeah, those were the golden years.
Did any of you notice that in the game directory of UT there was a little program that generated stats in a into an html file?
I remember discovering it after playing for about half a year. Took a break when I saw I had scored a quarter of a milion frags.
I was 17 when I was playing Unreal Tournement but I later went on to work for epic games lol. it was games like quake, half life and UT that got me into games as lead programmer.
I played he hell out of 2004. CTF was my favorite.
Ut99 was my first game ever! I played it when I was 4 at my cousin's house! I think i didn't know whah was going on most of the time, but I credit it with getting me into games, and also I think the soundtrack is the reason I love both metal and electronic music so much (and the intersection of them (industrial)).
I listen to the ut99 ost often when programming
Watching this brought back those nostalgic feelings from those days. Antalus had the best music from UT2004
F-ing Tokara Forrest, man...
I loved to load it up with no bots just to wander around.
I remember the UT2004 CD included a Linux version. I never managed to get it to work, but it was there ! That was very uncommon at the time, I've only ever seen that with UT2004 and Doom 3. Epic and ID really made history back then... now, they're history.
New subscriber!
You may have admired Tokara Forrest...but I was in love with Grassyknoll.
Noticing that a lot of old games are becoming popular with the old school gamers, including myself. Most new games today lack what gaming was all about!
42 here and same.
I STILL play Left 4 Dead 2.
Good talk, loved it. Still playing Ut2004 VCTF online almost every day on MiASMA.
I knew I liked you Bryant. Keep up the good work.
Playing UT on my UMAX Mac clone under MacOS 9 is a fond memory from uni days... good heavens, I'm getting old.
Romulus and Remus were my go to characters. Put many hours into UT until Tribes took over my fps time.
Fun fact. UT2004 had a Linux installer on the disk. It worked perfect :)
I guess pepperidige farm remembers
wait a second, there is no greater driving force behind MTX than Gabe. Literally the very last thing he ever said was how disappointed was that Artifact failed.
I was a 2k3 kid. The menu is much better than 4, but 4 has more features. It’s literally 2k3 with more stuff and a different menu.
In early 00s, I remember visiting a classmate of mine who had a copy of UT (likely it was the original UT). Boy, what a great game it was. Still remember the first time I've seen it. Perhaps one of the first (if not the first) multiplayer game I've tried. Heck, even single player with bots was a great experience.
Sadly, I had a really bad PC at the time that could barely run UT in software mode. Only in 2004, when I got a better system, I got a change to truly experience UT myself.
Well, as for Epic, they went the same way as pretty much the entire gaming industry. Now they only care about appeasing their shareholders, not their customers. Milking more money from you is all that matters to them.
I refuse to play anything with rootkits or invasive software in it. With little time I have for games, I prefer enjoying something that doesn't need to take over my entire system to work. Something than I can play on both my big screen TV and my Steam Deck. No matter how good the game is, to me if it needs to hack my system to work, it's a no go.
good vid, u said what i've been saying about Epic Games for years, used to be good in tha PCCD/DVD ROM era but now a shell of their former selves
heck i woulda been happy to buy UT and Jazz Jackrabbit Skins/Accessories but Epic won't let me so it's why i will never buy a Fort skin until they commemorate Epic Games's past
I got into UT with 2004 when my buddies and I had a blast with the demo and we all bought the full version for the LAN parties we held on a semi-regular basis. So much fun playing through Onslaught and Deathmatch throughout the evenings.
Epic abandoning PC in the mid-late 2000s because of the piracy boogeyman is why I couldn't take EGS seriously when it was launched. Why should I trust the PC platform to a company that decried the user base as criminals and only came crawling back when Valve showed their issues were (in Gabe's words) a service problem? Their tactics to drive interest to their store only justified my lack of trust in their efforts.
Never got into UT, though, I suspect they were "the good guys" at one point because they actually needed to compete. Actually needed to release complete product instead of leveraging licensing and commissions.
Man, when I got the cheat code that gave me unlimited nukes to shoot on Deck II. I would add 100 bots and nuke them all in a couple of shots.
Frankly, I enjoyed your rant! And I must completely agree. It is shameful how Epic Games discarded their legacy in sake of the future.
By the way, just a week ago I got a physical copy of UT2004 from some guy online. Epic can't keep me down!
Well said! I loved the Unreal series and would buy every release day one. When Epic killed off Unreal Tournament 4 in favour of Fortnite I cancelled my Epic Games account and removed the EGS store (in its then beta form ) from my PC. And I've never looked back. So glad I bought the Unreal collection on Steam ages ago, truly despicable that Epic have shat on their legacy to rake in the v bucks. *sigh*
Although online games eventually must die, I feel like Fortnite's gonna be around for basically ever at this point. Not only because of how profitable it is, but because they essentially turned it into Roblox. User-generated content basically guarantees that your game will be popular for decades. Even if Battle Royale games stop being popular, they can just make some other genre of game using Fortnite. Presumably anyone missing the Battle Royale mode 20 years from now will have a user-generated equivalent.
That game just refuses to die.
Epic bought up Harmonix a few years back which was a warning sign that the end of Rock Band would be coming... fast forward to 2024 and now the dev studio is focusing on Festival after releasing its last bit of RB4 DLC in late Jan.
i had to make a decision on whether to keep playing RB4, and in late 2022 Epic got into legal trouble and forced age verification into everything they owned, INCLUDING the Harmonix titles Audica and Rock Band 4 (for online play). i said "this is the last straw, im done with this" and left the RB community days before the new year... and when 2023 rolled around i found myself a new home with the Clone Hero and YARG communities.
i am aware this is unrelated to Unreal Tournament but hear me out for a moment: i played Guitar Hero 2 when Harmonix was doing the rhythm game thing for Activision in 2005. HMX split from Activision after RedOctane became the new development studio for GH3 and beyond. again, Harmonix birthed Guitar Hero but by GH3s release Harmonix was already working on their own thing, which became Rock Band kn 2007... and i think the rest is history
I can't believe you think Unreal Tournament was better than Quake 3 Arena. I've agreed with pretty much all of your views but this one. I'm saddened.
I don’t think you had AMD gpu when UT2004 was released :)
You're right lol. It was ATI
... I'm afraid to watch this, I was in the dark regarding epic since unreal tournament. (Forces eyes open)
I loved unreal 1998!!
UT2004 was just a complete game full of content. Compare that to the half baked riddled with microtransactions dumpsterfires they put on the conveyors today^^
Indeed, it's a shame how such company turned, I mean, Fortnite?.
What the fuck happened?
I miss UT it was fun....
I found funny that epic throws money at every problem but they still didn't fix the most basic things in their shitty launcher and still they trying to convince us to use this garbage
You should check out stopkillinggames
I don't remember you mentioning this in the video, but Epic has unlisted all their Unreal games from every online store. Quite a douche move.
Accurated
I still play unreal tournament I even play online with unofficial servers.😅
One other thing I personally all Unreal tournament have the pro's and cons I don't Abut 2003 and the console exclusives
1. unreal have some weapon's that it not on UT and the alos have camping
2. UT 99 have better dominion and have this weapon with the disk's.
3. UT 2004 have great level estimatic and the have multiple game modes.
4. UT3 have great important on the vehicle's and nice new Vehicle's as well and still like this game.
5. Unreal tournament pry alpha have better game play and graphics but unfortunately epic game have ubading this game the alos it's unfinished The have many maps with out texture and charter it's kinda out places.
I loved ut04
Much love UT2K4 folks! Keep on fragging and such bs Epic is trying to erase the golden era...let's make that effort in vain! \m/
I feel like only reason Epic is not supporting Linux is due to Valve :p
That's only a small part of it. Tim Sweeney is a modern corpocrat. He can't see past this quarter's fiscal projections. That means Epic is incapable of planning for the future or anticipating a threat actor like Windows.
4:30 It's "Gib", not "Jib".... Like how it's "gif", not "jif" 😘
Imma have to disagree with your first assertion. 😂
UT99 was so good, I never played a game like that with joy again. Now Epic is evil and all traffic to Epic is blocked by default on my network.
Did fortnite already delete skins? I've not heard of it yet, I'm not really following it though.
Q3 >
Epic is for games what Disney is for movies and what the WEF is for economics.
Capitalism works okay at a small to medium scale for inessential elastic goods, like a new game studio making innovative games... but at a larger scale, the profit incentive reliably turns corporations against the people.
How about steam
They ruined my favorite music app.
Yeah their servers are super slow compared to Steam. But they do give you free games every week. I've only bought a handful of titles from their store - the rest are the freebies including some big AAA titles
No? Never has been.
yes Epic Games was good during tha PCCD ROM era
So agree with everything you said about epic from their games to being involved of with CCP/fascist .I luved UT3 but maily because of how beautiful the engine was to me when i first booted it up on pc
Hi, I just want to ask about the big hole in the video here: what is the solution? Are you telling people to abandon games that they have played for years? Are you telling them to not pay Epic? (Sorry, that won't work since microtransaction means as long as people are playing the game, a part of them will pay, which means if you are playing, you are increasing the revenue for the company by keeping the paying players playing with you) Are you telling game studios to ditch the Unreal Engine? That means the game is going to look worse AND run slower on the same hardware, OR the studio has to hire like 5 PHDs in computer graphics to optimize the in-house engine. If you are not saying any of those, then SHUT UP because you aren't saying anything.
The solution here is to outlaw predatory business models. Lootboxes, for example. Toppling monopolies. Passing laws that encourage companies to open source their software or that prevent companies from locking their products to online servers. Or recognize that patents for software are invalid.
@@gardiner_bryant Hi, I'm not expecting to get a reply from you given the language I chose for this comment! I'm not against you or this video, I just hope maybe you can include these in your next video. Otherwise rant videos like this make people feel powerless, exacerbating the 'doomism' all across the Internet.
"Fascists regimes like Disney [...]" wat
Disney is an awful money-grubbing corporation, but what about them is fascistic?
😂
Walt was a Nazi sympathizer, they censor their media for the Chinese market at the behest of the CCP, they produce demogogic and decidedly anti-democratic propaganda (Marvel, specifically). EPCOT was an attempt by Disney to make a "perfect" city and they're resurrecting the idea today. Also, they're a mega conglomerate multinational company, so they are, by that definition alone, fascist.
@@gardiner_bryant Walt is long dead, almost everyone censors for the Chinese market, what is the demogogic and anti-democratic propaganda? epcot is also a dead project and I haven't heard them trying to go back to company towns. As for being a mega conglomerate multinational yeah that's pretty bad, but that's still not fascist under any accepted definition
I can get behind the arguments that co-operating with questionable corps and regimes and Easy Anti-cheat makes them the bad guy. But the Epic store and Unreal platforms have been nothing but a blessing for game developers who had no options besides getting ripped off by valve until it came around.
30% is not a ripoff, my dude. It's a reasonable share that I gladly pay as a developer because it means a healthy, vibrant platform that continues to get new features and stuff that I can depend on.
Tim Sweeney himself has said that their 12% cut is "unsustainable." Meaning it's not profitable. And the only reason they can do it is from a cash subsidy from China. They want to destroy Valve because Valve actually cares about their customers and his business practices.
30% isn't a rip off, but a deal as they have much better services on Steam than Epic Games
Long before Epic or even Steam was a thing you could distribute your games yourself, its not even that hard to do so in this the age of the pretty darn fast and affordable internet. What is hard is doing it well, jumping through all the legal hoops of every different jurisdiction, getting your game noticed etc etc - it will cost you way more to do the stuff you legally have to do yourself than the cut any of the stores take (at least for most scales of game), and that doesn't even count the effectively free marketing the stores get you. All Steam like stores do is make it trivially easy for the developers and hopefully a good experience for the customer.
Now if you want to build off a game Engine maybe you have had a point at times, but again there are many choices there all with different niches they have been better at through development, and as far as I can tell Source (the Valve engine) has never had crazy restrictions or costs for the developer...
Ut2004 is just ut2003 with a few more maps and less ammo for some weapons. Funny you rejected 2003 but you praise 2004...
I Will not call any corporation good, these companies just want money doesn't matter if it is Steam, Epic Games or any other company. I don't find anything wrong with the Epic games like you said they used to be good guys. i will not call Epic Games good or bad but they are making ground breaking technologies and opening more gates for game devs and players. For example, i found Epic games store really good because it is competing with Steam (mostly) and competition is good for all the consumers because it give best price and quality of the products. Just Because of Epic Games people now understand that there was some sort of monopoly on PC and Mobile market. No corporations are good but in this case Epic Games is a competition for other companies like Steam, Google, Apple, Etc. and this is Great for End Consumer and Game Devs. Damm man I really used to love your video, i thought you are the linux guy but after Steam Deck Release, it feels like you become Steam's bootlicker (no personal hate).