Epic Games donates $1.2Mil to open source 3D software, Blender

[Sir.gg]

https://www.blender.org/press/epic-games-supports-blender-foundation-with-1-2-million-epic-megagrant/

Through their press release:
 

Quote

July 15, 2019 (Cary, NC) – Epic Games, as part of the company’s $100 million Epic MegaGrants program, is awarding the Blender Foundation $1.2 million in cash to further the success of Blender, the free and open source 3D creation suite that supports the full range of tools empowering artists to create 3D graphics, animation, special effects or games.

Epic is certainly continuing their recent habit of throwing money around, but it's not just going to game devs it seems. Over the years, Blender has become a more well known name in tech, reaching gaming, modeling, visual effects and other applications. Anyone can download Blender and dive right in. There are even children who are becoming (relatively) proficient with Blender. This relationship makes sense - Blender being a readily available and free helps lower the cost of entry into these various fields, especially game development. A partnership of any type between Blender and Epic, the creator of Unreal Engine, simply makes sense.

My thoughts are pretty much that. While I dislike the Epic exclusivity bandwagon, I can support ensuring awesome open source projects of this nature are well funded.
 

 

[imreloadin]

inb4 Blender is only available for download from the Epic Game Store

[Sir.gg]

Just now, imreloadin said:

inb4 Blender is now only available for download from the Epic Game Store

plz no

 

I don't think the Blender people would do that for 1.2mil honestly. I also can't imagine how that would work with licensing.

Though, that IS basically why game devs are so cool with exclusivity - Epic is just throwing insane amounts of money at them to the point where even if their project flops, they maintain profitability. Everyone has their price so to speak.

[Princess Luna]

Well.... I can't remember VALVe ever doing any donation what so ever... so much for calling Epic the bad guys every time.

[Metallus97]

I still don't like epic store and stuff BUT that's pretty nice of them

 

But it begs the question: What do they want to arcive with this? NOOOO company will ever sped that amount of money without a economic interest behind this!

Maybe just to make some good news after the store shitstrorm?  Welllll I guess there is more behind that

[Sir.gg]

3 minutes ago, Princess Luna said:

Well.... I can't remember VALVe ever doing any donation what so ever... so much for calling Epic the bad guys every time.

Yeah it's a super smart move on Epic's part. They're slowly pecking away at Steam. Regardless of my annoyance of Epic Games, this is a good move that benefits everyone.

 

 

1 minute ago, Metallus97 said:

I still don't like epic store and stuff BUT that's pretty nice of them

 

But it begs the question: What do they want to arrive with this? NOOOO company will ever sped that amount of money without a economic interest behind this!

Maybe just to make some good news after the store shitstrorm?  Welllll I guess there is more behind tat

Disrupting trust in Valve has basically been Epic's main goal. Every little bit will peck at Valve, and this is no exception. 1.2mil is small fish compared to what they've been throwing at developers with no guarantee of return. More access to development tools means low cost of entry to game development, means more games being created and being placed on Epic Games store (or both). It's definitely a long term play. But, they had already set aside 100mil for their Epic MegaGrants thing. This has basically already been budget as money to throw around.

[2FA]

9 minutes ago, Princess Luna said:

Well.... I can't remember VALVe ever doing any donation what so ever... so much for calling Epic the bad guys every time.

Foundry10

[Chunchunmaru_]

is it going to lose Linux support like the other things they touched

[DrMacintosh]

Probably because of taxes tbh. 

[D13H4RD]

Finally putting that Fortnite/Tencent money to good use, I see

[Metallus97]

2 minutes ago, _Sir said:

Disrupting trust in Valve has basically been Epic's main goal. Every little bit will peck at Valve, and this is no exception. 1.2mil is small fish compared to what they've been throwing at developers with no guarantee of return. More access to development tools means low cost of entry to game development, means more games being created and being placed on Epic Games store (or both). It's definitely a long term play. But, they had already set aside 100mil for their Epic MegaGrants thing. This has basically already been budget as money to throw around.

Yah bruh! They trow money on them to get them to switch over to their store 

Epics main goal now: get bigger than steam 

[suits]

I will never understand how people are upset at epic for winning exclusive titles. You'd do the same if you had a game portal.

[Metallus97]

Just now, suits said:

I will never understand how people are upset at epic for winning exclusive titles. You'd do the same if you had a game portal.

Bruh!!!!!!! Sure I would. And I use the Epic store to (NOT for fortnite :P) 

 

Its just interesting to see how companies behave. 

[Sauron]

Good, now can they make the EGS open source?

[RejZoR]

22 minutes ago, Princess Luna said:

Well.... I can't remember VALVe ever doing any donation what so ever... so much for calling Epic the bad guys every time.

Well, Valve doesn't need damage control since they rarely fuck things up as far as Epic has. Unlike Epic which was on a MMMMMMMONSTER FAIL streak for a while.

[Sir.gg]

10 minutes ago, suits said:

I will never understand how people are upset at epic for winning exclusive titles. You'd do the same if you had a game portal.

I'm not mad at them for it. It's a super smart business move for all involved. It just kinda sucks. Their store needs a ton of work before it's truly usable, and the exclusivity is just plain annoying. They yell "competition" but they literally squash it for one year. At that point, projects are either standing on their own feet and able to survive past exclusivity or they will falter after the first year, or worse yet, never truly realize their potential. Exclusivity makes sense, it's just plain ol' annoying for consumers and even spectators who want to be angry about something.

Honestly, we just have to wait until the first batch of exclusives make it through their 1 year before we can make more accurate assumptions about the outcome.

I'm excited to see where we are in 1 year/1.5 year, but until then...

[The King of the Undead]

35 minutes ago, imreloadin said:

inb4 Blender is only available for download from the Epic Game Store

downloading now!

[imreloadin]

30 minutes ago, Princess Luna said:

Well.... I can't remember VALVe ever doing any donation what so ever... so much for calling Epic the bad guys every time.

That's all just PR damage control...

Kinda like when oil companies invest in renewable energy in order to "show they care about the environment" also.

[RejZoR]

1 minute ago, imreloadin said:

That's all just PR damage control...

Kinda like when oil companies invest in renewable energy in order to "show they care about the environment" also.

Though any smart energy company would start doing that either way. If you hold both, you're not really competing with anyone and if one begins to prevail, you simply shift the business in that direction. If you only hold oil industry today and you aren't prepared for the future, you'll go the way of dodo...

[jagdtigger]

54 minutes ago, Princess Luna said:

Well.... I can't remember VALVe ever doing any donation what so ever... so much for calling Epic the bad guys every time.

Not with money but they contribute to the development of wine bigtime.....

[Ashley MLP Fangirl]

57 minutes ago, Chunchunmaru_ said:

is it going to lose Linux support like the other things they touched

how? it's open-source right?

[Delicieuxz]

3 hours ago, Princess Luna said:

Well.... I can't remember VALVe ever doing any donation what so ever... so much for calling Epic the bad guys every time.

All the research Valve have done for Linux gaming, Steam controller, Steam boxes, Steam-Link, Big Picture Mode, Cross-Play, etc, aren't giving money to outside organizations, but they are investing in costly ventures to try to improve gaming. I'm sure Valve sunk at least a good hundred times that $1.2 million Epic donates to research and try out all those things.

 

Epic's $1.2 million donation seems a bit measly compared to their cash-stash, IMO. They're making around $3 billion a year from Fortnite and are spending loads of millions of $ on buying out exclusives. They could donate $150 million each year to various things and it would barely represent a scratch in their overall available money.

[WereCat]

3 hours ago, Princess Luna said:

Well.... I can't remember VALVe ever doing any donation what so ever... so much for calling Epic the bad guys every time.

It's not like VALVE is doing nothing. 

They are heavily pushing the Linux gaming front and VR. 

 

Blender is awesome and they definitely deserve this donation, I just don't think that EPIC did this just because they felt generous. 

Blender is picking up steam and there are many new "developers" making a ton of assets for games and selling them via the EPIC Store for the UnrealEngine. I'm sure that EPIC takes cut from that. 

 

But I still can't think / feel otherwise but appreciate this move as it benefits more parties than just themselves. 

[Stroal]

2 hours ago, imreloadin said:

That's all just PR damage control...

Kinda like when oil companies invest in renewable energy in order to "show they care about the environment" also.

Or maybe they are investing in software that will allow people to better utilize their engine. Which is a smart move and has nothing to do with making them look like "good guys"

[WereCatf]

3 hours ago, Princess Luna said:

Well.... I can't remember VALVe ever doing any donation what so ever... so much for calling Epic the bad guys every time.

They are constantly donating code, patches, bug-reports, completely new projects -- a huge amount of developer-time! Or do you consider only monetary donations acceptable? Contributing things that are directly beneficial to a huge number of people doesn't count, including people who would never be able to benefit from monetary donations?