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Epic acquires Rad Game Tools (Bink Video, etc)
- Thread starter daybreak
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Oh, that could change a lot of things... Epic will be pretty much mandatory for game devs because of the tools.
I imagine this will boost oodle adoption. Smart acquisition for them. They struck gold with Fortnite and have mostly managed to leverage it well.
User Banned (1 Month): Conspiracy Theorizing; Sinophobia
I'm waiting for EPIC to start programming spy ware and algorithms for China very soon with that many programmers....
The tools won't be Unreal engine exclusive and every developers with its own engine and expertise is not going to randomly drop their tech and waste years of R&D and millions of dollars
A concerning consolidation of game development tools on the market, government should investigate this.
Just kidding, that's be beneficial for UE5
Sony already bought a widely-used middleware and kept it agnostic. they would have done the same if they brought RAD
You know what funny thing is? Tim was on the record that they hate 3rd party tools (one of the reasons that they even went so far to not to use Steam API for friends matching and instead scrape your HDD and Steam files for it was because of that) and proceeded to remove them from Unreal (PhysX for example).
Lots of games use Bink video for video still, just not so low res anymore.
Ps5 games also use one of their other products : oodle Kraken , for file compression
Hell yeah, hyper compressed video files is just what Fortnite needed /s
In all seriousness this is a big move for Epic
In all seriousness this is a big move for Epic
For the most part they've made the tools free to use if you are using unreal.
Epic are creating massive ecosystem where you make games using their tools and they take a percentage of sales via licensing agreements and /or epic store.
It will reach a point where it will not make sense to use a different engine and various other pieces of paid middleware that are simply included for free when used with unreal.
So you are saying that they are slowly turning into "monopoly" :D
Enormous get, yes.
Really interesting that RAD was still independent though lol, Bink has been used non stop since basically the 2000s
Really interesting that RAD was still independent though lol, Bink has been used non stop since basically the 2000s
It's crazy that Bink video format has been used for sooo long and game devs have never gone with an alternate route somehow.
This, but unironically. With the hardware integration into the PS5 (and I believe they're working on support for the Xbox Series hardware decompressor), Oodle Kracken is basically an industry standard. Combine that with all the other dev tool companies Epic has acquired in the past couple of years, and it would be pretty easy to argue that Epic's past the point of needing broken up, Facebook-style.
Of course, Epic being an American company, that's never going to happen.
Seems to be coming together pretty well. I believe Cerny talked about how Kraken influenced the development of the PS5 from his gdc talk. I think it was when they were doing research and talking to developers about what they want to see for next gen consoles. Epic revealed UE5 using PS5 hardware. Now we see Epic buying RAD.
Hopefully new experiences that were not possible before. It depends on how devs leverage it. It might make their lives easier as well which means they can dedicate more resources to bringing features they envisioned to life rather than cutting out stuff due to technical limitations. If devs are happy, I'm excited as a gamer.
This is just for devs. It's another move to further push more devs towards UE by not having to pay a royalty to Bink. You make a game for UE? We waive that fee for using a common video game video format that we now own!
Nothing. This is a dev tools company that Epic is acquiring. Similar to previous acquisitions, all tools will remain usable just as before.
Epic wants to be a full stack provider. With these recent acquisitions, they are filling in gaps that their current tech stack does not provide. They also want to further drive adoption of Unreal, thus when they do an acquisition, they usually provide royalty-free licenses of said tech to any teams using Unreal.
Antitrust for what? They are not gatekeeping anything they are buying, and are playing this very smart by doing so. They know they don't want to end in trouble.
You guys/gals better melt eyes with the next iteration of Frostbite and Battlefield "6".
Y'know back when they announced they were buying Quixel I said a few things:
and:
I'm still surprised haven't heard of them going after SideFX or Foundry, but it's not hard to see why RAD Gaming Tools would be exactly the kind of thing they would want (Bink video & Kraken compression of Quixel Megascans for everyone who uses UE is an obvious use case).
- For those who would never be capable of creating/managing their own game engines, It continues to increase how comprehensive of an offering UE island provide you with access to functionality that would otherwise be beyond your means.
- For those who can afford to their own engine dev, It rebalances the financial incentives to do so by making the overall costs more attractive. By Intergrating more middleware as perks of using UE, they change the cost/value compared to developing an in-house engine + still needing separate licensing for Bink / Kraken etc anyway. (Sony already forked out for blanket licenses for Kraken which was super cool of them though).
I don't think its games studios they want per se, its that they want more tools to offer anyone who wants to make games (regardless of where they are on the spectrum - AAA, AA, indie etc). If someone needs a game engine - Epic have that, if they need specific content authoring tools - Epic will want to offer that (see purchases like this), if you need publishing then they offer that on PC etc etc etc. They want to make themselvess more attractive to the people who make content in ways other providers can't match (eg Unity).
Maybe next up is SideFX for Houdini, or Foundry if they want to go push more into VFX for movies/TV, or something like audio authoring tools, akin to Sony buying WWISE — maybe FMOD or ELIAS or something?
and:
Also the more I think about this, the upper end of AAA development aren't really using UE. They all have their own engines, so for Epic to increase their share of developers using it, the answer is to pursue dev studios below that by increasing the value of their toolset as mentioned above.
A good example of where their help will be needed will be in next-gen games where asset creation cost for the increased graphics will be higher. If you are Ubi or EA or Capcom or a first party studio etc etc, you can afford to have a team of people who will either create or scan assets for high quality terrain — for developers "lower" on the spectrum, then that is more of a higher commitment proportionally and this purchase is definitely something that can you.
I'm still surprised haven't heard of them going after SideFX or Foundry, but it's not hard to see why RAD Gaming Tools would be exactly the kind of thing they would want (Bink video & Kraken compression of Quixel Megascans for everyone who uses UE is an obvious use case).
- For those who would never be capable of creating/managing their own game engines, It continues to increase how comprehensive of an offering UE island provide you with access to functionality that would otherwise be beyond your means.
- For those who can afford to their own engine dev, It rebalances the financial incentives to do so by making the overall costs more attractive. By Intergrating more middleware as perks of using UE, they change the cost/value compared to developing an in-house engine + still needing separate licensing for Bink / Kraken etc anyway. (Sony already forked out for blanket licenses for Kraken which was super cool of them though).
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RAD Game Tools of Kraken fame.
I thought there would be a small chance Sony would aquire them similarly to Wwise but then again they do own stocks in Epic.
I thought there would be a small chance Sony would aquire them similarly to Wwise but then again they do own stocks in Epic.
Epic Games Invests in SideFX | SideFX
Epic Games is now a minority investor in SideFX. In Epic, SideFX gains a strong partner whose passion for the industry closely aligns with ours.
www.sidefx.com
elenarie touched on this, but as long as they don't stop providing the tools or charging any differently for people using them without using UE they they would probably be fine. I'm pretty sure people can still purchase Quixel assets at the rates they did prior to Epic's purchase even if they have no intent of using UE.
Epic could just argue "If the costs are unchanged, then what is different between then & now, and how is your business harmed etc"
Wow I completely missed this. I'm surprised its not a full purchase so it will be interesting to see what's in this for Epic (other than first rights at a future bid?). I stand by my assessment that them or Foundry could be a huge get for them.Epic Games Invests in SideFX | SideFX
Epic Games is now a minority investor in SideFX. In Epic, SideFX gains a strong partner whose passion for the industry closely aligns with ours.
It's worth reminding everyone that this isn't a big concern for any platform. RAD won't be exclusive to Unreal, just like the tools Microsoft recently acquired didn't become exclusive to them (they even partnered with Sony so they could use them for their games).