The man behind Fortnite is making the riskiest bet of his career. The payoff could be huge

From CNN: "Over the course of his career Tim Sweeney has been unafraid to take on tech industry giants.

The CEO and founder of Epic Games has had a knack for picking the right battles while also shoring up his company's independence. Fortnite, the company's blockbuster battle royale game, recently topped more than 15 million concurrent players and has spawned a universe of fandom. Epic challenged established platforms by launching its own digital video game storefront. And the multi-billion dollar company developed the Unreal Engine, a proprietary software for making its own video games that it licenses out to other developers and animators."

[DaCajun]

Another story about this guy and his supposed fight against the establishment when almost half his company is own by one of the largest if not the largest gaming media corporation eating up all the little guys, Tencent. Hypocrisy at its finest. Anyone who believes his BS is just another sheep.

[neutralgamer1992]

Tencent is better than apple that's for sure.

[DragonWarrior19]

Tenncent is owned by the Chinese government, or did we stop caring they are are an evil genocidal communistic dictatorship?

[Babadook7]

@Dragon.

It’s true. Thanks for being the one to say it.

[Omegasyde]

Thanks dragon warrior for stating facts.

This is still the same government which is point ing fingers at EU and USA for bringing Covid to China.

[Tear111]

American peoples hate Tencent because it is a Chinese company

If we going to talk about government, every government is filthy

They care about money and there own relationships

For example the US government stood against Saudi Arabia for the murdered of Kashkji but for a bunch of money from Saudi Arabia to United State, the US forgot all humans right

Don't tell my a lie that our or your government care about you or us
They care about money, your just a money maker for them nothing more

[mikeslemonade]

Stopped reading when it’s written by CNN, the Chinese news network.

[senorfartcushion]

@dragonwarrior

Nobody has forgotten, but it’s not like the other superpower governments in the world are “that much” better.

China aren’t a communist country, either. Stealing a name and using it is still stealing a name and using it.

[FPS_D3TH]

+10 social points for you

[Cueil]

I like how everyone forgets that the US government, being a giant failure just like every other large government, doesn't own any private companies and those it had investments in due to bailouts are all paid up (ie GMC). That can not be said of these socialist and communist countries. China has some of the most resilient and intelligent people on the planet, but that doesn't mean its trash government gets a pass. The CCP is cancer that should have been crushed in the 90s, but instead was propped up by Bush Sr and then further supported by borderline traitors in our Congress and the Clintons.

[Babadook7]

“American peoples hate Tencent because it is a Chinese company ”

Nope. We hate them because they act exactly like they are a tool of a communist regime. Which they are. You think we hate communist regimes? Yup. But not as much as the Chinese populace does.

[jwillj2k4]

Exactly, fighting the establishment might as well be him punching himself in the face.

[BiofourceGun]

DragonWarrior19 -
"Tenncent is owned by the Chinese government, or did we stop caring they are are an evil genocidal communistic dictatorship?"

and yet sony does regular business with Tenncent as well.
https://www.fool.com/invest...
https://variety.com/2019/fi...
https://www.reuters.com/art...
on top of making their investments to Epic games.
https://finance.yahoo.com/n...

[Genkins]

@ BiofourceGun

that's why i'm done with Sony all together. they gave almost a billion net worth to that Chinese dictatorship. on top of investing $250 Million to epic games which also invests in such tencent filth. Microsoft knows better.

[1nsomniac]

He sold enough of his company to make himself vast wealth and a big player. Followed by providing a better and more consumer friendly option for all parties. While at the same time making sure he keeps at very least a 51% stake holding in the company so he still has the final say what happens over the buyers & shareholders.

There’s no hypocrisy, just a kid on the internet sprouting off things he has no idea about.

The rest of you guys with these stupid comments are so fickle...

[StoneyYoshi]

This guy gets it! ^^

[Germaximus]

well said

[DethWish]

He still has majority stake himself though. So Epic is actually an indie dev :)

[frostypants]

You're not going to get critical or accurate industry specific news (for any industry) from CNN/Fox News/MSNBC. They're all borderline tabloids at this point.

[Aussiesummer]

Deluded nerd bastard.

[Gcayton1]

Such a risk for the millionaire CEO of Epic Games! Lol!

[neutralgamer1992]

Billionaire

[Rachel_Alucard]

His big risk is just mindlessly throwing free money at major publishers who only want more profits while he spews some bogus about how games will become cheaper because they'll totally pass the savings on.

[Magic_Spatula]

I too remember when he spewed that bullshit about passing the savings on to the consumers. Like fucker, games are still full priced on your shitty ass store front. Fuck off with that shit.

[Rachel_Alucard]

To add further now they want a price hike everything to $70, his store has been around for 2 years and literally nobody is adopting it like he wanted.

[FinalFantasyFanatic]

Strangely, every game I've seen is cheaper on Steam, Idk if that just Australia or the world, but games are expensive enough, so Steam it is. Plus I'm still surprised that Epic doesn't have alot of the features Steam has had for a long time, doesn't really feel like Epic is improving, still grabbing those free games though.

[Santouryuu]

Totally agree with the store front sentiment. Only wanted to add that steam has a rule that you cannot sell the same game elsewhere for less. I'm not sure about the epic exclusive games though, are they still full price? If so the negativity will keep growing.

[StoneyYoshi]

I mean they kinda are passing on some savings with the games they give away for free on their store. 90% of my library on their launcher are games that were offered for free. Seems like they passed savings to me at least. 🤷🏻‍♂️

[Blank]

Funny thing I took the clickbait to see what “bet” they were talking about. Hint: nothing to do with freeing himself from Tencent. It’s the Apple and Google lawsuit which will take a while to resolve and he has the money to last the court battles.

[Darkborn]

Still an idiot that did the whole free fortnite thing that was clearly planned to try to make more profits.

[generic-user-name]

The man behind Fortnite? They must mean Player Unknown.

[FPS_D3TH]

Cringe. PUBG was not the first BR

[generic-user-name]

Cringe. Which is why I said Player Unknown and not PUBG.

[FPS_D3TH]

Something tells me you don’t know who makes pubg.... lmao player unknowns battle grounds??

[generic-user-name]

Player Unknown is the alias of Brendan Greene, he is considered the father of Battle Royale games, he was making them before PUBG.

Cringe.

[XxINFERNUSxX]

Just looked up how much he has. "Sweeney has a net worth of nearly $10 billion" So he needs more $$? lol For what?

[Unknown_Gamer5794]

Another 11 summer homes, a Ferrari in every colour and shade, and a "good time" with multiple ladies of the "classy" variety? Just a guess though, as I'm clearly just a peasant compared to someone with that kind of cash.

[jznrpg]

I like “classy” ladies

[Shikoku]

When did being owned by a communist government front company make you anti estiblishment?

[melons]

holy fucking clickbait headline, CNN.

[CrashFistfight]

At the bottom of the article it says paid content. Is that referring to the article or anything after the article?

[Germaximus]

I'm confused. Outside of money alone, what's risky about suing someone? Most of us can't even afford attempting to sue anyone.

[Michiel1989]

clickbait title, sweeney isnt the man behind fortnite....hes the founder of epic games and i doubt after the first initial games they made he was hands on with any games they made.

[Magog]

The CEO didn't design the game. It's like when coaches get all the credit for a team's performance of a director for making a good movie. His input was probably even lower than that with Fortnite.

[PrinceAli]

The amount of racism in this comment thread directed towards the Chinese is f**king disgusting... you guys are actually deluded and I hope bad things happen to you just generally

[BlackTar187]

you hope bad things happen to us? Lol you're a psychopath.

[PrinceAli]

"You hope bad things happen to us?" looooool notice the 'us' not realising you are LITERALLY admitting to being racist?? You're actually a dumb*ss

[trippyaaron]

I didn't know you could be racist towards a government.

[PrinceAli]

just because you want to ignore the context doesn't mean the context all of a sudden disappears but yeah bud keep acting stupid im sure the racists in this thread are gonna applaud you and hold you up... Enjoy champ

[BlackTar187]

Damn.... you are really stupid.

[quenomamen]

Its easy to be a “Maverick” when you got 500 million in the bank. Wow he’s so brave.

[FPS_D3TH]

Fuck that biggest hypocrite in the industry

[MadLad]

The dude is one of the biggest, most disingenuous schmucks in the industry.