Some good news to share for the free and open source Godot Engine, as the lead developer Juan Linietsky announced during GodotCon that Epic Games have approved them for an Epic MegaGrant.
This was announced during Linietsky's talk on porting Godot Engine over to the Vulkan API, which is coming with Godot Engine version 4.0 later this year. Epic Games have approved them for a sum of $250,000 USD which they've known for a little while, but they only just got the okay to announce it.
You can see the livestream below. As it's live, I can't seem to link to a time stamp.
Direct Link
According to Linietsky, they're speaking with "many" other companies that may be looking to fund them too. So Godot Engine is definitely moving forward in the minds of all kinds of developers. This is true outside of funding in terms of actual usage too, with Godot gaining popularity when looking at the Global Game Jam.
So the Godot Engine crew join other software like Lutris, Krita and Blender who also previously got an Epic MegaGrant as well as the games ASYLUM and Ira. Epic Games certainly are starting to spread their cash around open source a bit more lately so that's great.
Find out more about the free and open source Godot Engine on the official site. You can also find more info on Epic MegaGrants here.
Hat tip to marc.
Update: Godot's official announcement is now up.
Unless they're going by the "enemy of my enemy is my friend" principle to hurt Unity...
Last edited by Sslaxx on 3 February 2020 at 3:09 pm UTC
Quoting: SslaxxHow bizarre. Why would Epic want to support a rival project, commercial or not, open source or not?Good publicity (they really need it), competition is good for everyone. To name a few.
Unless they're going by the "enemy of my enemy is my friend" principle to hurt Unity...
Quoting: rkfgGood publicity (they really need it), competition is good for everyone. To name a few.
I never heard the theory that competition is good for one of the competitors.
Having a monopoly is good for a competitor (which then stops to be a competitior, of course.)
Last edited by Eike on 4 February 2020 at 8:08 am UTC
Quoting: EikeUnderstand that it's not really about benefiting Godot, but about harming Unity. Clearly they feel the risk that some users might use Godot over Unity (and not UE4 over Unity) is outweighed by the benefits.Quoting: rkfgGood publicity (they really need it), competition is good for everyone. To name a few.
I never heard the thoery that competition is good for one of the competitors.
Having a monopoly is good for a competitor (which then stops to be a competitior, of course.)
Quoting: SslaxxHow bizarre. Why would Epic want to support a rival project, commercial or not, open source or not?
Unless they're going by the "enemy of my enemy is my friend" principle...
Nothing Epic has been doing lately makes too much sense from a business perspective.
I think it's just because Tim Sweeney is still a programmer at heart. He's trying to compensate for that with seemingly badass business practices. Probably because he read in a book that that's how you do it.
But let's be honest: As soon as the Fortnite millions are missing, the EGS is over, because it simply lacks the business model. In the end, Sweeney pays publishers and customers to use his shop. Valve on the other hand is probably still in the black with its Linux commitment. This is the subtle but significant difference between programmer Tim Sweeney and GabeN the businessman.
But it's definitely wise to take the Epic money with you as long as it's there. Because there's just no future in it.
Quoting: 0aTTQuoting: SslaxxHow bizarre. Why would Epic want to support a rival project, commercial or not, open source or not?
Unless they're going by the "enemy of my enemy is my friend" principle...
Nothing Epic has been doing lately makes too much sense from a business perspective.
I think it's just because Tim Sweeney is still a programmer at heart. He's trying to compensate for that with seemingly badass business practices. Probably because he read in a book that that's how you do it.
But let's be honest: As soon as the Fortnite millions are missing, the EGS is over, because it simply lacks the business model. In the end, Sweeney pays publishers and customers to use his shop. Valve on the other hand is probably still in the black with its Linux commitment. This is the subtle but significant difference between programmer Tim Sweeney and GabeN the businessman.
But it's definitely wise to take the Epic money with you as long as it's there. Because there's just no future in it.
It's not necessary a "rival", it is a tool in the same sense as blender, maybe they see a use case (down the road) for it.
Quoting: dvdIt's not necessary a "rival", it is a tool in the same sense as blender, maybe they see a use case (down the road) for it.
No, it's charity, non-profit, publicity. Call it what you want.
If you see a use case in your field of business, then you enter into a cooperation, because you want to control and influence the project accordingly. You pay people to develop a project in a certain direction.
Imagine Valve had simply given money to the Wine project. What would that have done for Valve? Absolutely nothing. There is a huge difference between giving money away and investing money.
Epic doesn't have a clue what they're doing. They just have a lot of money right now.
Quoting: rkfgQuoting: SslaxxHow bizarre. Why would Epic want to support a rival project, commercial or not, open source or not?Good publicity (they really need it), competition is good for everyone. To name a few.
Unless they're going by the "enemy of my enemy is my friend" principle to hurt Unity...
They certainly do. On the one hand I would say that they shouldn't be getting any slack after killing Rocket League for us... On the other hand if they think it works, and it parts their grubby hands with the money, and feeds good developers; hey, I'll pretend I think they're the best company in the world.
But if you ask me... 👌👈
Quoting: 0aTTQuoting: dvdIt's not necessary a "rival", it is a tool in the same sense as blender, maybe they see a use case (down the road) for it.
No, it's charity, non-profit, publicity. Call it what you want.
If you see a use case in your field of business, then you enter into a cooperation, because you want to control and influence the project accordingly. You pay people to develop a project in a certain direction.
Imagine Valve had simply given money to the Wine project. What would that have done for Valve? Absolutely nothing. There is a huge difference between giving money away and investing money.
Epic doesn't have a clue what they're doing. They just have a lot of money right now.
Good. We should make them part with as much of it as possible, while limiting the damage they do. All they've done so far gained them bad publicity and cost them money. Let's have them keep up the good work!
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