Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney opened the Unreal Fest Seattle event today with an update on news that included a blistering criticism of monopolistic platform owners . Sweeney is a big proponent of open platforms and the open metaverse. In fact, he will talk about that subject in a virtual talk at our GamesBeat Next 2024 event on October 28-29 in San Francisco.

(You can use this code for a 25% discount: gbn24dean). And so Sweeney continues to pressure the major platforms to give more favorable terms to game developers. He started out on that front by giving a price cut for users of Unreal Engine 5 , Epic’s tools for making games.

For those who release games first or simultaneously on the Epic Games Store, Epic is cutting its royalty rate from 5% to 3.5% for Unreal developers. He noted that Epic is in better financial shape than it was a year ago, when Epic had to lay off a lot of staff.

Sweeney said the company spent the last year rebuilding. Join us for GamesBeat Next! GamesBeat Next is almost here! GB Next is the premier event for product leaders and leadership in the gaming industry. Coming up October 28th and 29th, join fellow leaders and amazing speakers like Matthew Bromberg (CEO Unity), Amy Hennig (Co-President of New Media Skydance Games), Laura Naviaux Sturr (GM Operations Amazon Games), Amir Satvat (Business Development Director Tencent), and so many others.

See the full speaker list and register here . “I’m happy to tell you now that the company is financially so.