Last week, Epic Games officially announced its next-gen game engine – Unreal Engine 6 – with details about planned features and changes to the engine’s architecture outlined during June 17’s State of Unreal 2026.
Among the announcements, Epic shared plans for “portable content, codes and economies” between UE-developed games, with Fortnite slated to be the first real proof of concept. In Fortnite’s case, portability will allow cosmetics obtained or purchased in-game to be used in other UE games and vice versa. Additionally, UE6’s cross-game social link feature will allow players to be connected to one game, but voice chat with people playing another.
In a recent interview with South Korean outlet Inven Global, Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney went in detail about these features and how he sees them as a potential solution to some of the issues new releases face in today’s gaming landscape. While prefacing that the AAA industry’s current “crisis” is related to many complex factors, including excessive production budgets that don’t consider market size, he says there’s another unique hurdle faced specifically by multiplayer live-service titles, which Epic hopes to address.
“Users tend to enjoy games with their actual friend groups, and it is nearly impossible to move that entire group of friends from an existing game to a completely new one. Only the massive mega-hits that appear once every few years succeed in this community migration. This is the decisive reason why many multiplayer new releases have failed one after another recently. Users have already formed solid human networks in Fortnite, Call of Duty, Counter Strike, and Apex Legends; there is no reason to leave friends behind and go to a new game alone,” he says.
However, with UE6’s aforementioned cross-game social link, users will be able to “form parties via voice chatting with friends in Game B while connected to Game A, and encourage them to try a new game.” Additionally, he considers that being able to bring over rare items from one game to another will give players an even stronger economic incentive to try out new releases.
“The social and economic interconnection we are designing as the core architecture of Unreal Engine 6 will not only help next-generation developers develop games much more efficiently and sophisticatedly, but will ultimately lock users in strongly, dramatically increasing the probability of global success,” Sweeney says.
Unreal Engine 6 is slated to release in Early Access at the end of 2027, with the full release planned to come 12-18 months later.
But how are they going to get users to move from discord to their UE6 game integrated system? The communities already arent necessarily defined by the games being played, most groups are already playing different games hanging out in chat and we can all see what our friends are playing? How is this different and how is it an improvement that would get these groups to move of an already functional system?
I’m sure this will be a great experience! Imagine being a 3rd in a battle royale and—despite having a mic—you self-isolate and limit your ability to communicate, all while importing distraction from people divorced from the context. I’m sure everyone will be happy!
I have never once liked online multiplayer games so I don’t understand but it feels like these companies don’t have any common sense if it took them long enough to realize that people don’t want to play with random strangers. Especially in the toxic online environment of today.
Completely true. The players are the problem. I got on gta online for the first time ever. I get hit with an rpg sec9nds into it. Then he ran me over on his way out. Then started the s talk. So do you think imma buy it? Nope, gta six they stepping away from multiplayer focus. Theirs two chars for a single player game. Then you want 100 dollars? Kick rocks
Then please allow more trios in Fortnite. I believe more people have 3 than 4.
Haven’t made any new friends since most games don’t allow shit talking anymore and you can get banned for it. Best friends of 20 years were made shit talking to each other in UT and Q3A, and later UT 2k4.
Can’t even say poop without getting a warning anymore.
Then maybe stop calling people the n word and you wouldnt get banned
Which word is that?
“noob”
.
And you just proved him correct. People like you are the reason no one wants to risk their account and all the games they’ve purchased because some dimwit will get triggered by spicy banter and report them to the same rainbow haired nosering wearers who run moderation at these companies and get them banned. You and everyone like you are the reason the games industry is in a death spiral and I can’t wait til for the 2nd great crash if that’s what it takes to run you tourists off.
Waah waah I can’t be a racist chud online and that’s why everything is bad now 😫 what a braindead and incorrect comment
Nincompoop?
Ninny
Its called freedom of speech bud hate to break it to you dip shit but my rights dont end where your feelings begin
Google the first amendment. Just for fun, and you’ll see that free speech doesn’t apply here, and everyone can tell that you just want free reign to be rude to strangers.
“People like engaging in parallel play, so to ensure maximum customer capture within the Epic ecosystem, we are baking both a feature-poor Discord competitor and something in between save file bonuses and the Steam Community Market into the latest version of our already overloaded game engine. We expect that people will use these, despite no one wanting to use the Steam-competing storefront that we’ve similarly half-assed for about a decade now (and just admitted we should probably add some modicum of functionality to).”
Good ol’ Epic Megagames. Literally who is going to use crossgame progression? Are we really expecting devs of a fantasy game to bend over backward to let you bring a gun from another unrelated game? Or is this just an API for running a glorified Psycho Mantis scene? That part at least *sounds* cool in theory, but so did the Dreamcast’s VMU, and I can count on one hand the number of games that *used* it.
So they have reinvented cross game content and 3rd party voice chat. Bravo Brava Bravissima
Here’s an idea: let’s stop forcing people to play multiplayer.
So it’s NFT’s linked to an individuals UE6 account?
Tell me you don’t know about discord, team speak and ventrillo with out telling me 🤦♂️
No new games keep failing because gamers do no want uglified characters, with a heavy does of left wing politics shoved down their throats. As Supergirl is about to demonstrate once again, the “Modern Audiance” is a myth activists sold to the marketing deparments of these big studio’s. And despite the Billions already wasted Studio’s keep wasting money on an audiance that does not by games, nor go to movies. While Eastern Studio’s keep putting out successful games like Stellar Blade. Its simple appeal to your audiance and they buy your game, insult and lecture your audiance, and they wont.
Big dumb
Chill dem tids
Without bringing politics into this, because frankly the only ones having a meltdown are the wing nuts.
We are tired of the same old slop being repackaged as new and Innovative. Multi-player grinds are boring, IMHO. I lose interest fast and despise PVP. I also do not like this insane push toward loot boxes and gacha…
The ONLY comment here that gets it.
The woke will go broke ANY day now… aaaany day…
This is just Discord with extra steps. My friend group already sits in a party all night and plays different games. What does he think he’s inventing here? If friend groups don’t easily switch to different games, good luck getting those people to switch to a different social app.
What are they trying to accomplish with that thought process, I’ve been already connected with friends group a and b for years with team speak and then discord. Never really made me more inclined to switch games just on that. Cross item games also sounds horrible. Unless it’s a shooterman 1 to shooterman 2 sorta deal. Feels like they are grasping at straws.
so basically teamspeak or discord 🤣
No it’s because they don’t ask what we want to pay for. They just do amd assume.
I agree that the subject identified is part of the problem being faced.
But another key piece is also being overlooked.
We, the 50+ year olds brought everyone this thing called video games. We grew up scrounging and pilfering quarters, to travel miles in our cheap bikes, to play arcade games that everyone said were a waste of time. We have supported this industry with our dollars and enthusiasm every time it has foundered.
We started multiplayer, back in cabinet gaming in the 80’s and have been it’s strongest proponents in the game companies too.
We were couch co-op kings. And we control both our own spending on games, and that if our children.
If more AAA titles were designed and produced to focus on much less massive multiplayer games, they would sell more.
I want small safe “lobbies” and interactions with real life friends. Not interacting with strangers in high pressure gaming and having to make sure that stuff is safe for my kid who wants to play too.
Bring back real-friend multiplayer online gaming.
Exactly
Nah, it’s because you dipshts can’t make good games anymore. It’s either narrow minded gameplay with halfa**ed bs thats never finished or you straight up refuse to make ANYTHING with actual quality anymore… you want a game that can take the gaming industry by storm and quadruple your annual profits?? Come find me… I’ll be waiting
Can we please address the elephant in the room with already having the ability to chat with others through party chat on every system available. I would also like to point out the blatant failure of game studios being able to support servers on game release days. Every genre seems to not be able to make good server decisions and you cant actually play the game for 24 hours after release if you are lucky. You cant expect people to respect new games if all we get are bad results and still having to pay full price for a half completed game.
No. They’re failing because they’re bad. Plain and simple.
If they were good, the whole friend group would play them.
No, that is not why they all fail. It’s because we do not want them all the time. They have proven they will shut them down anytime they choose and tough luck to us. He knows nothing.
Well there are 200000000000 games to play. Many are multiplayer or co-op. Then many games want to be live service and nickel and dime you with micro transactions. Many do so while gate keeping the coolest skins with money.
Then you grind forever. Bf6 and many fps games have 100 guns and want you to level your character and each gun to lvl 10000000.
It just gets tiring.
There is just too much content and too many corporatized game entities.
Yeah, because discord totally isnt a thing that allows people to play different games and still be in communication with each other via voice. That is not the reason multiplayer games are failing as of late. It is clear CEOs have no idea what the actual problems in the industry are.
Someone should tell them Discord has already been invented. People are not stupid, will realize this, and then just go back to their game they have always been playing. This may only apply to teens an younger, which don’t play mmorpgs anyhow.
Tell them to go back to making games and stop being so greedy. It seems the reality is every facet of life its just a greedy little to no morals have taken over since ever. Most people think its recent, and even the ones who knew dont even come close to how far back the deception goes. And its not the deception really cause we all really know.
But its the decision to exploit a fellow human being to make your ends meet, regardless of intent. Its the action that leaves a bad taste in all around you who seem to shutter at your presents. Its a shame that they had to contribute to the downfall of man. So they can feel so loved.
I have no idea how that’s supposed to work, but I guess even Sweeney can say something decent. He’s right, why would I jump ship off a game I love playing with friends for some new thing if we still play the existing game?
What? What kind of backward strategy is this? Bring assets and economies from one game into another? I’m sure that won’t come an aesthetic and balancing nightmare or anything. /S.
One of the biggest things unity detractors point to is the amount of shovel ware asset flipping garbage. This is how you make more of that rather than less. I sincerely doubt that any developer is going to actually welcome people bringing WWII era models into their medieval game. Or people farming economy in some other game to bring into theirs.
And then voice between 2 different games? For what? Voice in a game is used, if at all, by people playing the SAME game. If people in different games that have nothing to do with each other want to chat, they already have discord. Gamers are just not going to look for two separate games with this cross chat feature. Being not in the same game, they’ll just continue using external communication tools.
This is just dumb. Both the games and developers are going to opt out. Sure, there will be a few exceptions, but those will just serve as proof of how this can’t work
Random queue is the bane of online multiplayer, what’s wrong with ye ol’ separate rooms? Just give a choice to players whether they want to stay in the same lobby and play with the same people if they want to.
Gaming got too competitive it ain’t fun to game just to chase arbitrarily set ranks. And rewards.
Seems like a rather out of touch take. This cross-game social link concept has existed on Xbox for many years in the form of party chat. The same could be said for Playstation and PC. In more recent years, Discord voice chat has been implemented into Xbox and Playstation, making cross-platform voice chat possible regardless of what game is being played. This is nothing new.
The real issue is that most of the games coming out in recent years just aren’t that good. That’s why the biggest titles are still games from 7+ years ago, which is actually insane. Many people don’t have the disposable income to drop $70 on a new title unless it’s amazing and I can’t think of the last game I would have actually paid that for. Many games just lack and immersion experience and more importantly replayability.
In a time where everything around us is more volatile then ever. Cost of living, salary, losing jobs to ai or a lazy CEO cuts jobs for short term quarterly gains and peacing out leaving skeleton crews to deal with the unmasurable stain to customer service and vocational literacy earned through entry level positions. There is one constant, a person’s friend group.
Hey I believe we met before nice seeing you again Sweetie
Honestly, just shut up Tim. Lmfao. Unreal engine 5 has been nothing but a problem because you presented it as a copy and paste solution, now UE6 is supposed to help solve everything? LMFAO , I think we’ll all be focusing much more heavily on Indie studios from now on. If Tim’s kind of statement makes you wanna see more UE I can’t help you 😒💯 Cross compatibility has been out ever since Rocket League started doing it Unreal Engine 6 isn’t introducing anything new here at all.
Epic, ha Multi-player games are failing because there are too many cheaters or people using aimbots like cronus zen, cronus xim players invest thier time and money to play a game that ultimately gets overrun with people who cheat to stay relevant the anti cheats do nothing, heck for all I know the same game developers are also creating and selling the cheats to profit twice bring back honest play.
Players can already communicate while their friends play a different game. It’s called Discord. Are those users more likely to try a new game than those who communicate in game? Perhaps. But it does not appear to be the case in my experiences. Granted, I do not have empirical data to back this up. Should be pretty easy to confirm.
No games are failing because they’re liberal propaganda, have sbmm manipulated match making, and cheaters. They’re bad products anyway you look at it. Crossplay with pc destroyed multiplayer games for people on console. Developers will not talk about the rigged matchmaking no matter how much they have to change the game to justify its existence. They’ve had to add casual modes to replace the majority of real players because they will not admit that sbmm is terrible and doesn’t work, just like communism.
This CEO is Cancer.
I hate this man
No. Multiplayer games are failing because every game is a cash grab with skins and stuff. Not only that, but with all the predators online now, parents are limiting what their kids can play. On top of that, everyone is tired of dealing with cheaters and the companies not doing anything about it. Then you have streamers and pro gamers. Multiplayer games cater to them and ruin it for the casual gamer. Its not 1 thing that ruins multiplayer, its multiple
In person multiplayer is the solution to most of the troubles on the internet.
$70 for a POS game that does not allow local multiplayer is insane.
These game manufacturers and Woke DEI gaming scenarios needs to end.
Until then. This OG gamer and hacker from the 80’s and 90’s (name is still present on almost all Atari, PS2, XBOX, MAME Roms ever unlocked)”
Playing with “Real” friends in your home is how you learn to interact with real people.
As many have stated games are failing because companies are going in trying to monetize the game first then cobble everything together based on that alone. The indy field is still doing fine and dandy and sorry for the ultra conservatives out there… the “games are too woke now” excuse is just as much as. If the game is good and the story is awesome people will like it. Commander Shepard was banging every alien regardless of gender and no one cared. What we cared about was the star child bs ending given to us by the team after all this build up. If the characters story is strong and fits it doesn’t matter what their beliefs are. The problem is AAA games only look about making money not making a good game.
Multiplayers games to me aren’t failing it’s actually that the company’s making them aren’t keeping the good games running, only game that’s winning to me is CSGO they arent budging on their game no matter what ANYONE, ANYONE! thinks lol they’ve kept the same game with what one major update the past 20 years and they are just fine right? I’m a fan of CSGO because of that, and I only played the game a few times in my life lol DEI in games is the exact opposite of freedom, freedom is doing what you want with your game and if you want to take customers thoughts into consideration or have a vote on it cool, not some YouTuber ranting how bad it is right away, or being told by DEI stuff what needs and needs not to be in your game your making lol the heck? Who’s game is it yours and your customers? Or these handful of people that want to tell you what to do? example; all the crap about warzone mobile being horrible on YouTube and forums was completely false to me after getting a better phone the game ran excellent! All the YouTube videos about warzone sucking had to be propaganda to switch everyone back to cod mobile because the money they made off micro transactions on cod mobile would go down and because of player base switch concern, sure people felt that warzone mobile is gonna be a new switch and all that time and money everyone spent on cod mobile can’t carry over this and that, but dang dude! let people have a choice, warzone mobile was the best fps game on a phone I’ve ever played I got rid of my console to play it on phone only! Then what happens it gets shut down lol So to me every time a game company gets it right they have to be being attacked by these weird sources because it never makes sense when they shut down. Weird meaning taking a game telling the maker what to do and making it unfun and stupid and no one want to play it lol
Nah, that’s not the reason. It’s the buggy coding, horrible registration from bad netcode, and the infestation of cheaters and lack of action taken against them. They even unbanned all the cheaters to give them a second chance, so now they’re just better at hiding the cheats. Their response was to give controller players an aimbot, so now all the games are just full of aimbots.
How about less online multiplayer and more console multiplayer. It’s more fun to invite friends over and get demo’d in person then some schmuck you got stuck with randomly who wins by 4 points then dms you offering to teach you. It’s easier to talk and try new games with friends next to you than friends you made online.
100% correct.
In person multiplayer is the solution to most of the troubles on the internet.
$70 for a POS game that does not allow local multiplayer is insane.
These game manufacturers and Woke DEI gaming scenarios needs to end.
Until then. This OG gamer and hacker from the 80’s and 90’s (name is still present on almost all Atari, PS2, XBOX, MAME Roms ever unlocked)”
Playing with “Real” friends in your home is how you learn to interact with real people.
Those who are crying about not having their frienda coming with them are the ones who destroy the gaming industry. So what if your friends don’t wanna play that game? Just go online and meet others that will play that game with.
Interesting how user spending dictates developer tactics. So the developers plans are to trick the user into seeking new game(s) to spend money. Consumer culture is sickening. No innovation just trickery.
1. No reason to not talk to friends in other games? How about focus, not cluttering comms etc. For competitive gaming this is important
2. For games/levels where it does not matter as much… ever heard of discord? Why on earth would they tout this nonsense as being new
That won’t help. The reason we don’t swap to other games is more varied than that, but a big one is cost. It is a hard sell to het a whole group tp buy some aaa title to play together. I wnt to play somic crossworlds with my friends but unless they had a system like Split Fiction where only one person has to own it then it’s not happening. So instead none of us bought it at all.
Steam Family is great they just need to ease up the restrictions a little and let people co-op off one copy. I agree it’s hard to coordinate a friend group playing something because of varying tastes and people are hesitant to buy a copy of a game just on the off chance they’ll play it with a friend. At the same time I don’t think every game needs to be a f2p microtransaction riddled slopfest. But AAA needs to figure out not only relaxing the barriers to entry but also going back to the old ways of private self-hosted servers and p2p because people also don’t want so-called live service content built around FOMO tactics and servers that could be shut down tomorrow once they’ve decided they’d rather you buy and play their new game.
Also when u start playing a mutliplayer you depend on them to have enough multiplayer to make this game still playable. I wont name the last game i quit but in less than 1month the number of other player drop by AT LEAST 60% and the only players left were either russian or israelian, so aint no way i was staying.
Multiplayer games are failing because there are endless paywalls. You buy a game system, pay for internet, pay for games, pay in-game for multiplayer access, and then there’s season passes. It’s insane to think all of those things actually require so much money. It is inaccessible to most regular people. And there’s no end to the greed for profit.
Okay so XBOX Live has BEEN doing this since DAY ONE with the 1st Old huge “BRiCK BOX with the OVERSIZED controllers with the black & white extra buttons! What is the point 🤷♂️??? CROSSPLAY? An EXTRA Friendslist? ANOTHER Social Media Group? They say DISCORD …I don’t even use that nor ALL social media so I don’t get that! There’s ALREADY too much “doomscrolling” on those I don’t think I can do it…I don’t even Tik Tok & don’t Twitter X once Musk(ey) got involved. So NO. If ANYTHING we can LEARN from recent Game Companies, WE are DOWNSIZING! Yep cutting out the REDUNDANT FAT. Heck personally I’m DROPPING my XBOX Live Subscription Down to the BASIC $9.99 tier because I’m sick of paying $120 for internet to TURN around and pay Microsoft another $40 a Month just to get on COD multi-player. Especially their NEW prez just said they are PULLING COD off Live Day 1 for FREE ( BTW no such thing as FREE! ) SO why pay $40/mo when I can just BUY the game for $60 and let them KEEP all those lil B.S $5 triple wood CCC “FREE” ($40×12) games. They HIKE prices, Layoff Half their “SLAVED” staff, Release UN-Optimized/incomplete Products, CuT & Paste the Maddens, 2Ks, CODs and have the NERVE to CHARGE us more! Talking bout 👄 “were LOOSING money” ….💁♂️YHEA, tell me about it! From this GREEDY sub par Gaming Industry! Heck @ Least xbox “kind of” got that part right with “My Rewards”🗣THEY SHOULD BE PAYING US TO BE PLAYING some of this TRASH 🗑 🖖
p.s KEEP your Cornball DRAKE skins in Canada & Fortnite 🙏 pls!!!😴🥱 No one wants him “Wall Glitching” over in COD!!! 🤬”They NOT Like US!” ✌️
Honestly they need to go back to having dedicated servers. Stop the matchmaking with a squad of 3-4 players. Thats the problem with my group. Can only get several guys playing together because its limited to only 3-4 players. Always a struggle to play anything when theres 7 people wanting to play.
That’s why data governance is booming as a job sector. Huge demand for integration across digital ecosystems by decision makers. Would it benefit players? If done right – sure, but the push of message is UE and not all games are down to pay for unreal license.
No the reason that modern AAA games are failing compared to their earlier or indie counterparts is entirely economic. The market does not support widespread adoption of new technology. It is completely unaffordable for the normal person to spend money on most leisure let alone inflated prices of modern components to upgrade their systems. Next Gen consoles, while still more affordable have also jumped incredibly in price. Until manufacturers are willing to seek a broader market, they will continue to flounder because they wealthy aren’t buying for all of us.
How about stop communication banning players for saying bad words? Most of these games are rated M and are for players 18+….
Yep. I, for one, don’t play with or communicate with people I don’t already know because I’m not risking my account so some brain-diseased libtard can get me banned so they can feel some modicum of power from their mommy’s basement.
Or you guys could just bring back the franchise that basically made epic what it is today. Bring back Unreal Tournament, and that’s it!
Makes absolutely no difference to me. I don’t use Discord and I don’t have any friends!
Unreal engine 5 is already dogshit.
Now we’re worried more about social features and porting items that dont belong into different games that will already run like shit and require AI upscaling to reach 60fps.
Maybe a multiplayer game just needs to be good and run at a high framerate without AI upscaling to get people to play it with their friends ďûmbàśṣ.
This. Thanks to AI making hardware unaffordable, developers are either going to quickly learn how to optimize games again or they’re going to be out of a job. I guess there’s a silver lining to all of this.
Sweeney is a clown, his opinion on pretty much anything is irrelevant. The man has spent billions (of fortnite money, which was essentially a fluke) on a failed steam competitor because he doesn’t understand why PC gamers use steam in the first place. He certainly does not understand why multi-player games fail, and it’s definitely not because they don’t have shared economies. More money than brains with this one unfortunately. Cool concept, but that’s about it.
Things Gabe has that Tim Sweeney doesn’t:
* A better platform
* Educated opinions
* More success
* Integrity
* Customer service skills
* A full head of hair
* A wife
* Children
* A loving family
* Low cortisol levels
* Humanity
Let me know if I forgot anything
And this is why everyone in the tribe is deadset on trying to legally bully Steam into the ground. He goes against everything they stand for and by not having a public company they can’t force their way in and take control of it like they’ve infected everything else.
I was against Steam from day one just because I’m anti-DRM in general but how quickly they became the last bastion for any real gamer left even as their own forums are riddled with the same tourists that need to be purged from this industry.
That fact existed always, hence not being the reason. The multiplayer and games in general are failing because they simply are not good.
I don’t even remember the last time i played a decent multiplayer game or game in general – maybe witcher 3 or skyrim, civ6 if we go further.
The question we need to ask ourselves why games in the last decade SUCK.
Tim Sweeney proving time and time again how detached from reality he is with his constant dogshit opinions and decision making.
Repair first this lag cheaters and then think on super multiplayer games .!
Here’s a groundbreakingly innovative idea:
MAKE GOOD GAMES.
A product that people enjoy sells itself. Gamers smell bullshit a kilometer away.
Elden Ring, Baldur’s gate 3, Expedition33 etc’ proves it
It blows my mind how often the people in charge show they have no idea what they’re talking about. People can already talk to their friends in discord or a hundred other programs, and isn’t the reason new multiplayer games fail.
They fail because devs jump on the hype train instead of making something new, take 5-7 years to actually release their game, and provide zero reason players should leave the existing similar game they already play. If they actually did something new and gave players what they wanted, they’d have no problem staying afloat.
I don’t think those comments by Tim were meant for us – gamers.
It seems to me it is directed at the guys who OK’D Marathon, forced live service on Redfall etc. Those CEO’s who thought they will be next free money making machine like Fortnight.
It is not directed at people who know this is BS. This is for those blinded by greed and promises of riches. People who don’t know Discord does it – and probably do it better after UE6 drops (in more ways than one) – and most players turn of ingame voip unless it is part of gameplay like in Lethal Company.
Those guys know nothing of the games we will migrate for. They did hear about Fortnight though. Of the money Epic was raking in. So, Timmy is selling them a dream: “You failed, but that’s because you didn’t use my product. Buy it and build with it and that failure will turn into success. Just like Fortnight.”
I play games that are fun! Not what my friends say are fun… I don’t need a friend group to decide the games I play
So Unreal 6 is the new Roblox. Lol
Wrong.
The crackdown perceived “offensive” speech on consoles went too far. Month long bans were handed out for normal interactions and had taught the users to avoid inteacting with other players entirely last they get a 3rd strike and hit buy a permanent locking of their profiles.
Xbox was incredibly harsh on this with magnifying ban lengths based on quantity of reports, not the quality of the infraction.
A user can report a username and have it acted on regardless of the word. There was a time you could report a pertain for nothing and it result in a ban, or if someone tactically abuses someone then reports them for responding.
This is the reason people stopped talking.
Or, support Discord. If you isolate their communications to only games with Unreal 6, you build walls again. Native support for Discord in every game and you build bridges.
This is a solved problem via tools like discord. Permitting communication outside the game doesn’t solve this.
Anyway, what the fuck would they say to me? “I found a XY-AB!” “I don’t know what that is.” “It’s a really good weapon, I swear.” “Cool, congrats.”
Dude is out of touch with reality. Nothing unusual here.
New multiplayer games keep failing because they are garbage slop that keeps being recycled over and over and over again with just a new layer of worse optimization. There is nothing more to it.
No multi-player games are failing because the developers are to focused on making us play the game a long time without making it fun. They put grindy mechanics in and don’t even care about match making. Eventually people will always walk away.
More like AAA game titles are missing something special, something those previous mega hits might still hold. Why change, if the new games are same “safe” designs that fail to push the industry, but are optimized for stock holders.
oh wow this is revolutionary Tim Sweeney is truly the mind of tomorrow, oh wait xbox parties, discord and all these other ways to communicate existed long before now. this man is so disconnected from the gaming world now, pushes more and more of the crap that is unreal engine and then thinks party chat is new
This sounds terrible. An expansion on everything the gaming community hates
Or… And stick with me here… Or is it possibly because we’ve been force-fed the same MP slop for the last 20 years? Call of Duty, Battlefield or some variant? Over and over and over? CoD games have become the new “EA Sports” annual release. People are tired of paying upwards of $70 for the same game with a few new maps and skins.
Maybe I’m just old, which I am… But back in the day games rarely were multiplayer and were never ONLY MP. There were no Day 1 60gb “updates”. Those were called patches and they only ever happened if there was a serious bug. Sure, games weren’t as visually appealing as games are today, so they had to rely on the story, not other players. And you didn’t get cursed out by 12 year olds while playing.
I would take Police Quest 1-3, Wing Commander 1 & 2, Gunship, M1 Tank Platoon and so many others over the regurgitated garbage they put out now. This is why people are so gung up for GTA6 to come out. Like them or not, Rockstar still puts out good single player games with multiplayer as a bonus. Too many game companies today have been gutted and turned into glorified mobile games with their only focus being on micro transactions.
No … The reason people don’t want to leave their current multiplayer games for newer ones is the new ones just offer not enough reason to do so.
People big into online games tend to like to master the map and mechanics. They want to know everything weapon, everyone corner, every exploit. But the thing is most don’t really enjoy the learning, they enjoy being the expert. There are obviously exceptions to this, but in general live service fans prefer what’s familiar.
To get them to move to a new game you need to offer enough incentive to make relearning all of that worth it.
But games aren’t improving as much as they used to. You can barely notice graphical improvements without a side by side comparison and mechanics have already been polished to near perfection.
Sure there are a few fun ideas and innovations, but none of its enough to get people to pack up and leave their “home” for a new multiplayer game.
Pokemon has realized this and their solution was to split off the competitive scene into a stand alone service so that the games can instead focus on single player content without being burdened by needing to serve as the new platform for competitive play. Which is a far better solution than trying to force developers to incorporate cross game okay into the games themselves.
The only real use case I can see is for annual releases like COD basically transferring EVERYTHING to newer games … Or in other words it will let developers treat new games like a paid for update. Which has SONE use … But I can also see some studios exploiting this. To charge full price for things that should have been dlc for the original game.
Maybe, just maybe, games like fortnight have no point to them. There is no goal other than to win. Games used to have an endgame, something these online platforms have lost. They are easy to get bored playing
Ever heard of discord?
Yeah no ,homie, discord has been a thing for well over a decade now,multiplayer games fall over like dominoes these days because they f****** suck and none of them are worth our effort or money nonetheless time to spend on. Look no further than the battlefield and cod installments
Homie has never heard of discord apparently. Multiplayer games are failing because they’re garbage,not because people aren’t talking to each other (although that certainly doesn’t help,has nothing to do with why cod and battlefield keep failing)
Timmy is off his rocker.
New games fail because almost all new games are a revamped idea that has been around forever.. with a new livery.
You got your fps, survival, battle royale, racing, sports, city builders and “sim” games. …and then you have a couple story rich games that are essentially the same thing with different names/characters. This isn’t an extensive list.. but covers the vast majority of games today.
We’re all played out on that. Pubg was the last “revolutionary” game to come out and it’s been a decade.
Find something new to base a game around.
We (me and the boys) are constantly saying “nah, I’m played on that one…” Or “why can’t they make something new that is multiplayer and actually interesting with depth. This is why we’re always bouncing between Rust, Rocket League and Dayz. ..we used to play CS.. but how many times can you “rush B”?
Ever stop to consider that gamers are sick and tired of wasting money on the same regurgitated BS? Looter shooters with loot box and companies that can’t keep their hand off your wallet?
Baldur’s Gate and Expedition 33 proved we want more than grind…
Stick the game store in there and you’ll have a steam engine 😉
Have you considered maybe the issue isn’t multiplayer games, but actually co-op? I’d love to play more games like Emissary Zero with friends, but there’s a severe shortage of games like that for groups larger than two.
The problem I haven’t seen anyone address: every new game is a contender in an “attention economy” where every game does its best to hook you in for as many of your disposable hours as possible. This is why Steam backlogs are a thing. It’s not that we don’t want to play the games. We just don’t have the time when we’re already invested in one for X hours per night. The industry and gamers ourselves have grown this problem ever since “this game has 120 hours of gameplay” became an important metric.
No guys they fail because every game you make is littered with microtransactions and you care more about how to pinch a dollar in every way other than focusing on making good rememberable experiences for the player. Ps2 never had these issues when it released their games they werent trying to cater to audiences they werent filled to the brim with microtransactions and the games released on it werent priced at 100 dollars a game. The games industry is just trying to print money instead of trying to make good games stop blaming a single genre of games for why people dont play them and instead look at your garbage games and get rid of microtransactions take games back to 50 dollars at release and tell the developers to spend money more wisely so they arent forced to steal it from the pockets of players
Why would anyone move off of discord?
No they are failing BECAUSE 90% or more of them are TOO “WOKE”!!!
The gaming industry as a whole needs to be staffed by the same type of people it was
15 – 20 years ago!!!
STOP hiring people based on sex/race/politcal views for quotas/personal reasons over those who ARE MORE QUALIFIED!!!
Cross game chat exists. Multi-player is dying because of micro monetization and removing good content from the in game loop. Also there is no TRUE coop games like Destiny 1 was all the IP’s are dying due to massive micro transactions and games aren’t made for the players anymore.
Make games w Difficulty, Learning curves, Stakes and Consequences again!
Games these days are little more than walk-through tutorials that auto save every 30seconds, and infinite respawns where there is no threat of Actual Loss
Even the all free for all type games!
Kids these days have never had to put anything like real effort and attention into Anything, you’ve basically designed the (equally detrimental to society) BS
no “child” left behind theory of schooling into today’s games falsely teaching upcoming generations that they don’t need to have skill, aptitude, or even really Any ability to achieve to get anywhere, to move up, or even really gain access in the first place
That they don’t have to so much Try to continue…
And as someone who has had to ( at least attempt to) train a dozen or so people (on an assembly line)
IT SHOWS! No one wants to do anything, Try to, or put forth Any effort if they do, and when asked to apply themselves they cry to management that Everyone is “being mean to them” for doing so!
These kids… Hell this reaches back at least as far as my own generation being 42yrs old, and I do believe we were in school when the “just push then through” program…. I mean the no child left behind programs began… 50% (if not Higher) of HS Graduates either Can’t or can Barely Read… One shouldn’t pass 3rd grade w the reading skills that many Adults showcase
Yet at a certain age these clowns are still permitted to Drive, Drink, Vote. . . When I wouldn’t be comfortable letting a lot of these folks vote for AGT contestants!
And these are the people, who expect everything to be Just Handed To them that’re gonna vote away what’s left of our human rights and privacy to get as much as they can Handed to them!
So congrats on assisting in the downfall of society and the species as a whole!
No, multiplayer games are failing because they’re cash grabs, lifeless and boring. Pretty straight forward Tim. Get your head out of your ass.
This is the genius idea they want to shovel into games and call it “innovation”? Sweeney, buddy, your head is too far up your ass. Or maybe this is the result of spending too much time malding at Valve. Either way, this is patently absurd and it sounds like an April fools gag.
So he described Discord, but worse. Good job!
Or perhaps the fact that these days the majority of multiplayer games all follow the same layout and process they might as well be the same game can’t possibly be the issue.
Personal gripe with epic is the fact that Fortnite is the reason they stopped Unreal Tournament.
Tim Sweeney’s not totally wrong, but he’s missing the bigger problem.
New multiplayer games don’t fail because players won’t leave their friend groups. They fail because people are tired of paying full price for expensive games that launch broken, then getting hit with paywalls, battle passes, and locked features.
Want friends to buy in? Bring back couch co-op. That’s how people used to get friends hooked: they came over, played with you, had fun, then bought the game so you could keep playing together online.
Isnt that what Discord s for?
“Users tend to enjoy games with their actual friend groups…” The fact that devs see this as a problem speaks volumes, and the comments section did not disappoint.
With that last part I’m having flashbacks from the time Ubisoft thought it was a good idea to make NFTs that would supposedly carry from one game to the other.
Crashed and burned.
I think I’m starting to see a pattern here