Epic Games banked a $3B profit in 2018

Re:Epic Games banked a $3B profit in 2018 by techopoly on Thursday December 27, 2018 @03:32PM (#18772397)

It's been a point of contention recently, the question of who created battle royale. Perhaps Greene is responsible for the modern iteration of it, but the last-man-standing concept has been around in gaming since Bomberman in 1983. And the concept of battle royale in general was popularized with the Hunger Games and of course the film named Battle Royale. And, "battle royale" as a phrase was used by Ralph Ellison in 1952 in his classic novel Invisible Man, describing a free-for-all boxing match that the protagonist must participate in. So Brendan Greene didn't come up with this out of thin air, or at least he wasn't the first.

On the other hand, I see no problem with him trying to profit from it either.

Edit: I correct myself -- in Invisible Man, the phrase was "battle royal," not "battle royale." It's still clearly similar however.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Epic Games banked a $3B profit in 2018 by pbalau on Thursday December 27, 2018 @06:44PM (#18773681)

I don't think the question is who started the genre, but who made it commercially viable. And I think pubg gets this

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Epic Games banked a $3B profit in 2018 by user5994461 on Thursday December 27, 2018 @07:54PM (#18774010)

If anything, it's the movies that made it commercially viable, not games that came out later and rode on the wave.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Epic Games banked a $3B profit in 2018 by moron4hire on Thursday December 27, 2018 @08:18PM (#18774134)

I doubt 50 million people in the West have seen a Japanese cult film, but 50 million people have bought PUBG.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Epic Games banked a $3B profit in 2018 by user5994461 on Thursday December 27, 2018 @08:31PM (#18774217)

Didn't everyone see Godzilla?

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Epic Games banked a $3B profit in 2018 by beetwenty on Thursday December 27, 2018 @04:13PM (#18772682)

It was in wrestling before any of those, too. Mirriam-Webster dates it to 1671.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Epic Games banked a $3B profit in 2018 by Viker on Thursday December 27, 2018 @04:19PM (#18772737)

You are just nit picking. He is talking about the closing circle game mechanics. Yes simple but yet genius.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Epic Games banked a $3B profit in 2018 by mnem on Thursday December 27, 2018 @04:29PM (#18772793)

Bomberman shrank the arena when the matches went to sudden death. Pretty sure others also did this (certainly common in single player games of that era and earlier - arguably Joust with it's rising lava is close to being the first for that sort of thing)

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Epic Games banked a $3B profit in 2018 by meestaahjoshee on Thursday December 27, 2018 @04:46PM (#18772896)

lookup H1Z1

also this concept was a minecraft mod called hunger games before that even

PUBG succeeded and vastly popularized the BR genre but it definitely didn't invent it

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_royale_game#Early_games...

  While Battlegrounds was not the first battle royale game, its release to early access in March 2017 drew a great deal of attention, selling over twenty million units by the end of the year,[18][19] and is considered the defining game of the genre.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Epic Games banked a $3B profit in 2018 by retromario on Thursday December 27, 2018 @05:59PM (#18773421)

> lookup H1Z1

That's what the grandparent was saying: Brandon Greene, the man mostly responsible for PUBG was also responsible for H1Z1 (SOE licensed the Battle Royale mode from him for H1Z1 and hired him as a consultant): https://www.pcgamer.com/battle-royale-modder-brendan-greene-...

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Epic Games banked a $3B profit in 2018 by Felz on Thursday December 27, 2018 @04:44PM (#18772885)

Like almost all game mechanics, I'm fairly sure I saw this in a WC3 custom map half a decade ago.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Epic Games banked a $3B profit in 2018 by TeMPOraL on Thursday December 27, 2018 @07:00PM (#18773771)

Or even in a StarCraft (the first one) map. AFAIK, MOBAs were invented in SC/SCBW, and refined with the original DotA - the W3 map.

(Tangentially, I'm still amazed at the variety of gameplay ideas people were testing in SCBW and W3's UMS maps).

[ Parent | on HN ]