Best printers for Home

Best Mixer Grinder

Best wired Earphones

Best 43 Inch TV in India

Best Wi Fi Routers

Best Home Theatre in India

Smart Watch under 5000

Best Laptops for Education

Best Laptop for Students

<ul class="summary-list"><li><keyword id="11893181" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="amazon" source="Orion">Amazon</keyword>'s history in <keyword id="11930905" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="video-games" source="Orion">video games</keyword> is riddled with expensive failures.</li><li>With "<keyword id="12216581" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="new-world" source="Orion">New World</keyword>," the tech giant may have its first major hit video game.</li><li>The new game has topped charts and pulled in millions of players since launch this week.</li></ul><p>On Thursday morning, just before 9 a.m. ET, over 70,000 people watched a livestream of a man waiting in a virtual line. </p><p>Like the streamer himself, those tens of thousands of viewers were waiting for the servers to Amazon's first hit game, "New World," to open, and more than 1,000 other players were already queued ahead of him.</p><p>Since "New World" officially launched on Tuesday, September 28, the PC-only game has been wildly popular on both <keyword id="11908908" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="twitch" source="Orion">Twitch</keyword> and <keyword id="12216583" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="steam" source="Orion">Steam</keyword>, the world's largest digital game platform. It's so popular, in fact, that Amazon has had to use virtual queues to keep the game's servers from crashing for too many players being online at once.</p><p>That's right: Amazon, which operates <a href="https://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/global-infrastructure/">millions of servers around the world</a>, couldn't keep up with player interest in its online-only game.</p><div type="image" title="A Twitch streamer waiting in a virtual line to player Amazon's, &quot;New World,&quot; a new video game from Amazon Game Studios." height="1080" width="1920" msid="86656789" hostid="261"></div><p>On Twitch, "New World" is the most popular game by hundreds of thousands of viewers. The game pulled in just shy of 1 million peak concurrent viewers on launch day, StreamElements told Insider.</p><p>"It's safe to call it a successful launch day," StreamElements cofounder Doron Nir said.</p><p>On Steam, it's either the most popular game by hundreds of thousands of players or a close second place - hanging with multiplayer goliaths like "DOTA 2" and "PUBG" with nearly 1 million concurrent players at any given moment.</p><p>This all stands in glaring contrast to Amazon's previous efforts in <keyword id="6357332" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="gaming" source="Orion">gaming</keyword>. </p><p>The company's last major release, "Crucible," went from a lackluster launch to being outright shut down by Amazon.</p><p>Hundreds of people spent years of their lives, and Amazon spent millions of dollars, creating "Crucible." It launched in May 2020, and was <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-ends-production-of-crucible-game-2020-10">pulled from digital storefronts</a> just five months later. It's no longer playable in any form.</p><p>"Crucible" was just the latest in a string of failed gaming projects from Amazon stretching back years.</p><p>There was "Breakaway," a multiplayer brawler that Amazon canned several years ago, and "Sev Zero," an Amazon-produced game for Amazon's short-lived Fire TV gaming initiative. The company even produced an Amazon-branded video game controller for use with the Fire TV, but it failed to catch on with consumers; the gamepad no longer works with modern Fire TV devices.</p><p>Arguably Amazon's biggest success in gaming prior to "New World" is Twitch itself, the video game streaming service it <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-buys-twitch-2014-8">acquired back in 2014 for just shy of $1 billion</a>. Though the service has faced various controversies over the years, it remains the dominant video game streaming platform despite challenges from the likes of Facebook and YouTube, among others. </p><p>Whether "New World" can hold on to its initial momentum remains to be seen, but at very least some help is coming for exasperated players waiting in lengthy virtual queues to get into the game's open world.</p><p>"We understand that some players are experiencing lengthy queue times and we are working hard on a few things to help address these issues," an update to <a href="https://www.newworld.com/en-us/news/articles/launch-day-update">the game's blog</a> from this week said. "We are continuing to stand up additional servers and will expand the capacity of our existing servers once we have properly tested these changes."</p><p><em><strong>Got a tip?</strong> Contact Insider senior correspondent Ben Gilbert via email (<a href="mailto:bgilbert@insider.com">bgilbert@insider.com</a>),</em><em> or Twitter DM (<a href="https://twitter.com/RealBenGilbert">@realbengilbert</a>). We can keep sources anonymous. Use a non-work device to reach out. PR pitches by email only, please.</em></p>

After 10 years of trying and failing to break into the video game business, Amazon finally has a hit with 'New World'

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Drew Angerer / Getty Images</span></p></div><p></p></div></div>Amazon has reportedly acquired yet another company involved in the video game industry. <a href="http://pitchbook.com/">PitchBook</a> is reporting (<a href="https://techcrunch.com/2017/07/28/amazon-reportedly-acquired-gamesparks-for-10m-to-build-out-its-gaming-muscle/">via TechCrunch</a>) that Amazon purchased a small gaming firm called GameSpark last quarter for about $10 million.</p><p>Like Amazon's <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-buys-twitch-2014-8">other gaming acquisitions</a>, GameSpark isn't a game developer - instead, the company provides what it describes as "the ultimate backend development platform for game developers." In so many words, GameSpark provides a framework for the creation of games.</p><p>It stands to reason that, if GameSpark was indeed purchased, Amazon will now offer the services that GameSpark did at one point - presumably through its Amazon Lumberyard program.</p><p>Lumberyard, which was introduced back in February 2016, is an all-in-one game development engine. In English, that means it can be used to create games that can then be supported by Amazon's internet hosting services (AWS) and Amazon's game streaming service (Twitch). It's a kind of "closed ecosystem" approach to game development that encourages any developers using the service to also use Amazon's other services to support their games.</p><p>GameSpark offers services like leaderboards and microtransactions, potentially offering additional services to Amazon's Lumberyard game development service. For its part, Amazon hasn't officially announced the acquisition, nor did it respond to request for comment as of publishing.</p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/life-hack-amazon-echo-dot-car-infotainment-system-2017-7">Turns out the Amazon Echo Dot makes an amazing car infotainment system</a></h3>        <div>            <div>        <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="w2aHJ3YjE6Msk98syneC2A0i7WL6MbKh" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div>        </div>        </div>            </div>

Amazon quietly bought a gaming company for $10 million, according to reports

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right click-to-enlarge"><div><div class="image on-image"><a title_source="Melia Robinson/Business Insider" title_caption="" class="zoomin" href="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/56ba6f286e97c61a008b62c5-960/san-diego-comic-con-cosplay-0355.jpg"><span class="sprites click-to-enlarge-icon" title="Click to enlarge"></span></a><p class="source"><span>Melia Robinson/Business Insider</span></p></div><p></p></div></div>Only the fall of civilization from a widespread zombie attack will release you from Amazon's terms of service for one of its new products. </p><p>The company <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EdU1s1FGTDY">just released a game engine</a> called Lumberyard that gives developers a bunch of free tools, but one of the best parts of the announcement was hidden in the <a href="https://aws.amazon.com/service-terms/">Amazon Web Services Service Terms</a>.</p><p>In one of the new clauses related to Lumberyard, Amazon says that developers can't use its materials for "life-critical or safety-critical systems."</p><p>However, that rule will be voided if there is a "a widespread viral infection transmitted via bites or contact with bodily fluids that causes human corpses to reanimate and seek to consume living human flesh, blood, brain or nerve tissue and is likely to result in the fall of organized civilization."</p><p><span>So, if the zombies attack, feel free to use Lumberyard in any way you please.</span></p><p>Here's the full screenshot (first spotted thanks to <a href="https://twitter.com/DianePatterson/status/697186966396280832">Twitter user Diane Patterson</a>):</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span><a href="https://aws.amazon.com/service-terms/">Amazon</a></span></p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p class="tagline">Disclosure: Jeff Bezos is an investor in Business Insider through hispersonal investment company Bezos Expeditions.</p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/designer-creates-math-based-sculptures-2016-1">This math-based sculpture is hypnotizing when it spins</a></h3>        <div>            <div>        <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="dqaHBiMDE6EkEGXu5bTKGq76CgF13gp5" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div>        </div>        </div>            </div>

The only way to get out of Amazon's terms of service is a zombie apocalypse

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div>Amazon raised a lot of eyebrows when <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-buys-twitch-2014-8">it bought the massively popular Twitch game-streaming service for $970 million</a> in August 2014.</p><p>Why it would spend so much cash for Twitch was a real head-scratcher - live game broadcasts on the internet aren't exactly what you would call core to Amazon's retail business.</p><p>Things got murkier in late 2016 when Amazon announced that it was <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-breakaway-crucible-new-world-games-twitch-2016-9">getting into the game business</a> directly with three new PC titles, starting with multiplayer brawler "Breakaway."</p><p>At the Game Developer Conference in San Francisco this week, Amazon Games VP Mike Frazzini tells Business Insider that it's all part of one big master plan - a plan that comes directly from the playbook of CEO Jeff Bezos, focused around the idea of being "customer centric," and a plan that's <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/amazons-970-million-purchase-of-twitch-makes-so-much-sense-now-its-all-about-the-cloud-2016-3">already underway</a>.</p><p>The big question at Amazon, he says, is "Who are our customers and how do we help them?" In the case of game developers, "they want to spend as much time as possible on creative and as little as possible on everything else."</p><p>To that end, Amazon is exploring what Frazzini calls "two fascinating frontiers" with regards to games: "Crowd" and "cloud." Which is where Twitch and the <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/amazons-cloud-business-hits-over-12-billion-in-revenue-2017-2">$12 billion Amazon Web Services cloud computing behemoth</a> come in, and where they play so well together.</p><h2>The wisdom of the crowd</h2><p>From Frazzini's perspective, Twitch's massive success - with over <a href="http://twitchadvertising.tv/audience/">100 million users every month and a reach that includes half the millennial males in America</a> - taps into a current that's existed since there were video games.</p><p>"Games have always been about communities," says Frazzini.  </p><p>Gamers have long turned to each other for recommendations and advice on new games to buy, Frazzini says. Twitch's most popular streaming personalities gather those communities around them, making them a key part of how new games go from good idea to massive phenomenon. </p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div>That means opportunity for Amazon, which has been giving game developers new ways to hook Twitch features into their games. For instance, games like <a href="http://steamcommunity.com/games/386940/announcements/detail/879715412041543921">"Ultimate Chicken Horse"</a> let Twitch viewers vote on the hazards that will appear in a level, giving them a part to play in the outcome of a match.</p><p>Those features help developers turn their games into durable businesses. A vibrant community keeps a game alive, driving sales of the core experience and any other premium content that comes later. And those communities are increasingly born on Twitch. </p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>On the other side of the equation, Amazon is exploring new ways to bring Twitch into the core of its business, giving Amazon Prime subscribers access to a bevy of Twitch perks. And just this week, Twitch announced that it would <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-twitch-to-sell-video-games-2017-2">start selling games directly</a>, giving streamers a cut of the revenue for any sales they drive.</p><p>After all, Frazzini asks, if Twitch streamers are how gamers are now finding games, "why not make it easier to buy stuff?"</p><h2>Lumber mill</h2><p>Those Twitch integrations are also a big part of the "cloud" piece of the puzzle. Amazon Web Services is already Amazon's most profitable unit, offering access to fundamentally unlimited supercomputing power on a pay-as-you-go basis.</p><p>Game studios, Fortune 500 companies, and pretty much every other type of software-related business are at least looking at cloud services from <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/why-amazon-is-so-hard-to-topple-in-the-cloud-and-where-everybody-else-falls-2015-10">AWS, or its rivals, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud</a>. In light of that competition, Frazzini says, it's Amazon's mission to "be the best listeners on the planet" and deliver what customers need.</p><p>That's why Frazzini says his team at Amazon is focused on trying to make it as easy as possible for game developers to get started with AWS. That's why Amazon launched Lumberyard - a free platform for building games, called an "engine" in industry parlance, that simplifies the process of development in the cloud. </p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>Better yet, Lumberyard offers all kinds of built-in integrations with Twitch, including a recent service called Metastream which presents Major League Baseball-style real-time statistics to the viewers of an online multiplayer match. </p><p>So by choosing Amazon Web Services, Frazzini says, a game developer gets lots of technology, much of it for free, for building cutting-edge games. And better yet, he says, that same technology makes it way easier to connect with those all-important Twitch audiences, which in turn makes your game more marketable.</p><p>For Amazon, that makes these two businesses "self-reinforcing," he says. The more successful a game is on Twitch, the more capacity and services it'll need from Amazon Web Services, ideally for Amazon. And the more it takes advantage of AWS, including Lumberyard, the more fans a game can find on Twitch.</p><h2>Breakaway and Bezos</h2><p>This is where "Breakaway" and Amazon's other original PC games come in.</p><p>Built on Amazon Web Services, Lumberyard, and offering deep Twitch integration including that new Metastream feature, Frazzini says that "Breakaway" is meant to prove to developers that the company knows what it's talking about when it comes to games. </p><p>While Frazzini definitely hopes that "Breakaway" finds its audience and turns into a viable game on its own, he also says that "it helps" when you go into a customer meeting with a game developer and can show them a real thing, built on the real technology.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>From Frazzini's perspective, it's still very early on for Twitch, Lumberyard, and even Amazon Web Services itself. Ultimately, it all comes down to a very Bezos-driven philosophy, Frazzini says. Whatever it takes to connect with customers and provide what they want, you do it, and you "really pay attention to details." </p><p>"You do that hard work," Frazzini says. "And you do it over, and over, and over, and over."  </p> <p class="tagline">Disclosure: Jeff Bezos is an investor in Business Insider through hispersonal investment company Bezos Expeditions.</p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/what-its-like-twitchcon-live-gaming-2015-9">20,000 gamers turned out for Twitch's first convention - here's what it was like</a></h3>        <div>            <div>        <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="1kY21zdzorxgLoOJZuk_5ocOKKjl0k-s" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div>        </div>        </div>            </div>

Amazon's video game boss just explained where its $970 million Twitch purchase fits into its most profitable business

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Mike Segar/Reuters</span></p><p class="caption">Amazon Founder and CEO Jeff Bezos</p></div><p></p></div></div>Amazon raised a lot of eyebrows when <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-buys-twitch-2014-8">it bought the mega-popular Twitch game-streaming service for $970 million</a> in August 2014.</p><p>Why Amazon would spend so much cash for Twitch was a real head-scratcher - live game broadcasts via the Internet isn't exactly what you would call core to Amazon's retail business.</p><p>It was only today, walking around the Game Developers Conference, that the penny really and truly dropped for me.</p><p>Amazon's Twitch buy was an investment in bolstering <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-and-amazon-are-a-lot-alike-2016-3">Amazon Web Services</a>, the company's $7-billion-plus cloud computing juggernaut.</p><p>The Game Developers Conference is the annual gathering of the game development industry, which has <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/sony-playstation-vr-could-be-the-next-ipod-2016-3">recently expanded to include virtual reality</a>. Other events like E3 are the big media spectacles, but GDC is where business gets done. </p><p>Just walking around the GDC show floor, it quickly became apparent that the biggest companies in tech all see gaming as a massive opportunity.</p><p>IBM's SoftLayer hosting subsidiary is here exhibiting, as is Google with Google Cloud Platform and Chromecast. Microsoft is here <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-merging-windows-and-xbox-together-to-win-over-its-most-critical-market-2016-3">promoting its Xbox and Windows 10 businesses</a>. Facebook is actually here twice when you count its subsidiary Oculus VR having its own separate booth. </p><p>And Amazon is here, mainly to promote AWS Lumberyard, its new service for helping developers build games and host them with the Amazon Web Services cloud. You may have heard about <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-zombie-clause-2016-2">Lumberyard's terms of service</a>, which say that you can only get out of a contract in the event of a zombie apocalypse.</p><p>And right next to the Amazon Booth? A Twitch booth, boasting "Twitch Dev Success." </p><p>See, Lumberyard and Twitch itself both offer tools to help developers include the game broadcasting service straight into their apps. It means that game developers can include new tools that let players interact directly with the strangers watching them play, and vice versa.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Matt Weinberger/Business Insider</span></p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>This is intensely desirable for developers: Twitch has 100 million users and counting, with over 7.5 billion minutes of video watched. Getting that massive community engaged with a game can mean the difference between success and failure. </p><p>With Facebook, Google, Microsoft, and the like all gunning to get developers to host their games in their clouds, Twitch could be a huge competitive advantage for Amazon Web Services - Microsoft may have the Xbox, but it doesn't own the massive force multiplier that is Twitch's rabid fans. </p><p>And with Amazon Web Services itself facing intense competitive pressure from Microsoft Azure, a deep integration with Twitch becomes a strategic move to attract as many developers from the lucrative games market as it can. </p><p> </p><p class="tagline">Disclosure: Jeff Bezos is an investor in Business Insider through hispersonal investment company Bezos Expeditions.</p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/what-its-like-twitchcon-live-gaming-2015-9">20,000 gamers turned out for Twitch's first convention - here's what it was like</a></h3>        <div>            <div>        <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="1kY21zdzorxgLoOJZuk_5ocOKKjl0k-s" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div>        </div>        </div>            </div>

Amazon's $970 million purchase of Twitch makes so much sense now - it's all about the cloud

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Mike Coppola/Getty Images</span></p><p class="caption">Epic Games cofounder Tim Sweeney</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><ul><li><strong>Tim Sweeney, the CEO of<a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/category/epic-games">Epic Games</a>, tells Business Insider that the success of <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/category/fortnite">"Fortnite"</a> shows that there's no such thing as a "mobile gamer" or a "console gamer" anymore - there's just gamers. </strong></li><li><strong>That's a big part of why the company this week launched Epic Online Services, which will let video game developers easily create games that include cross-play across PCs, consoles, and smartphones. </strong></li><li><strong>Sweeney says that it's all based on tech that Epic came up with itself for "Fortnite," and indeed, the success of that game has allowed the company to reinvest in Unreal Engine and the Epic Games Store, businesses that serve outside developers. </strong></li><li><strong>Epic is making a big push towards helping other developers succeed, pro bono, because Sweeney says what's good for the industry is good for the company. </strong></li></ul><p>Last year, Epic Games successfully convinced <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/sony-gives-in-allows-fortnite-crossplay-ps4-xbox-nintendo-switch-2018-9">Sony to allow players of its smash-hit game "Fortnite" to battle each other across PlayStation and Xbox</a> - a big win, given that Sony had publicly<a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/sony-playstation-4-ps4-crossplay-nintendo-microsoft-2018-6"> resisted this so-called cross-play</a>. </p><p>At this week's GDC, Epic doubled down on this push towards cross-play, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/epic-games-cross-play-xbox-playstation-nintendo-pc-2018-12">releasing the already-announced Epic Online Services</a>, a free set of tools to help power online games. Among other features, it lets developers enable cross-play in their games across Windows, Mac, and Linux, with support for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, Apple iOS, and Android coming soon. </p><p>Tim Sweeney, the CEO and cofounder of Epic Games, tells Business Insider that Epic Online Services was born from the lessons the company learned from the wild success of "Fortnite," and all the systems the company put in place to support the massive influx of players. Now, he says, he wants other developers to benefit from that success.</p><p>"Fortnite's paved the path for a lot of things. I think the cross-platform experience ... companies throughout the industry are not taking advantage of that yet. And I think that's a huge opportunity for further work," Sweeney said in an interview with Business Insider at the <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/category/gdc-2019">Game Developer's Conference in San Francisco.</a></p><p>Indeed, he says that the game industry is somewhat missing the point when it comes to the importance of cross-play. More than just a player-friendly feature that encourages more people to spend more time with more games, he says cross-play is a small part of a much bigger trend in video games that many are overlooking.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Matt Weinberger/Business Insider</span></p><p class="caption">Epic Online Services uses the tech behind "Fortnite" to help developers bring their games to every platform.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>Sweeney says that the industry is very focused on only putting certain types of games on certain platforms - the conventional wisdom for years has held that intense action shooters like "Fortnite" have no place on the smartphone, where puzzle games and simple arcade-style titles rule the roost.</p><p>Epic rejected this school of thought: Rather than releasing "a different game that was a dumbed down mobile experience," says Sweeney, Epic instead opted to "port the full game, and trust that players want great games on mobile devices, and that players will play a real shooter on mobile devices."</p><p>To his point, "Fortnite" on smartphones is exactly the same game as the versions that run on larger screens, with every match populated by players across all platforms. In fact, Sweeney says that plenty of "Fortnite" players don't just limit themselves to one platform or another, using a variety of devices to play the game. It proves that players don't actually care about what games play on which device, he says; they just want to play good games.</p><p>"The genre thing is overrated, and the platform decisions are overrated," Sweeney says. "It's what we see on 'Fortnite,' so many of these gamers play on a variety of devices, so you can't say they're a mobile gamer or a console gamer. They're just a gamer." </p><p>He thinks that the video game industry hasn't quite wrapped its head around this yet, but that there's hope. </p><p><em>"</em>I think that the industry is getting better every day. Everybody is coming to the recognition now that this is good for all our businesses," says Sweeney. "I mean, it's both good and it's inevitable."</p><h2>The bigger picture</h2><p>In general, Sweeney says, the success of "Fortnite" has given Epic the runway to reinvest in other aspects of its business.</p><p>Sweeney notes that Epic's business has always been cyclical - over the years, it's been responsible for hits like the Unreal and Gears of War franchises, which were tremendous blockbusters in their own right, but which have since either lain dormant or else gone off to other developers to continue. </p><p>"'Fortnite' is really big, but two years ago, that entire revenue was zero," says Sweeney. </p><p>Since 1998, however, Epic began offering the Unreal Engine, which has since become a standard engine for game development. More recently, it opened the Epic Games Store, a digital storefront. </p><p>"We're a company that's gone through many cycles and evolutions, and every time we have a major success we double down and use the money from that to fund our initiatives and so forth," says Sweeney. </p><p>In this case, that reinvestment has resulted in new pushes like Epic Online Services. Notably, while it definitely works with Epic's own Unreal Engine, these online services are also compatible with competing engines including Unity and Amazon's Lumberyard. Sweeney says that there are no strings attached; it's all part of a plan to make the whole industry better, reflecting Epic's distaste for "walled gardens" that benefit a platform holder at the expense of others.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>"Fortnite"/Epic Games</span></p><p class="caption">The smash success of "Fortnite" has given Epic Games a lot of runway to reinvest in its businesses.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>Similarly, Epic also this week announced a new program called Epic MegaGrants, a $100 million fund to give money to academic projects, open source software, game developers, and anybody else doing anything at all related to the Unreal Engine. Again, there are no strings attached, and no expected return on the investment. And, as Sweeney notes, it's the extension of the previous Epic Grants, a similar $5 million fund - with the huge jump from $5 million for the first iteration to $100 million for the new one as a sign of "Fortnite's" success, says Sweeney.</p><p>Sweeney says that it's Epic's position that these grants are worth it for the prospect of building the Unreal Engine ecosystem, and pushing the games industry forward as a whole.</p><p>"These are things that enhance the community and grow it for everybody, including us," says Sweeney. </p><p>He acknowledges that there are places where Epic's status as the proprietor of the Unreal Engine and Epic Games Store might lead to moments where it competes with outside developers who use its technology - anybody could, in theory, use Epic Online Services to build a game that's bigger than "Fortnite," on as many platforms. </p><p>But Sweeney says that the industry has a "very healthy attitude" to this kind of dynamic in general, with everyone part competitor and part "supplier" to each other. And, in fact, he says that this is how things should be, with developers free to pick and choose which technology they want to use, and how they use it. </p><p>"We're always trying to provide the best service, and if somebody provides a better service, that's when [customers] will go to them and not us, and that's on us," Sweeney says. </p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/victorias-secret-closing-dozens-stores-2019-3">Victoria's Secret is closing dozens of stores this year - here's why the brand has failed to keep up</a></h3>        <div>                    </div>    </div>

The CEO behind 'Fortnite' says the entire video game industry is missing the 'inevitable' trend as the barriers between consoles and smartphones get obliterated

You Searched For "amazon lumberyard" and got 7 results

After 10 years of trying and failing to break into the video game business, Amazon finally has a hit with 'New World'

Ben Gilbert

Amazon quietly bought a gaming company for $10 million, according to reports

Ben Gilbert

The only way to get out of Amazon's terms of service is a zombie apocalypse

JILLIAN D'ONFRO

Amazon's video game boss just explained where its $970 million Twitch purchase fits into its most profitable business

Matt Weinberger

Amazon's $970 million purchase of Twitch makes so much sense now - it's all about the cloud

Matt Weinberger

The CEO behind 'Fortnite' says the entire video game industry is missing the 'inevitable' trend as the barriers between consoles and smartphones get obliterated

Matt Weinberger

Bloomberg's Joe Weisenthal explains why there's 'no obvious solution' for our never-ending supply chain predicament

Rachel Premack

Popular Keywords

Buying Guides