Tom Swooney on the dart board

[Jedimindtrickonyou]

Found a dart board with a photo of “Tom Swooney’s” face on it. What does this represent? Do the Selaco devs not like Epic Games? Is it because of EGS or Fortnite or what? I know it’s not actually Tim Sweeney and it’s meant to be a joke, but still found it interesting. Is this a nod to some other game in the genre that I don’t know about?

[Jedimindtrickonyou]

Originally posted by Nathan:

Don't forget pulling Unreal off of digital stores, I think they don't even sell them on the EGS, just pulled completely, and it was perfectly playable, solo & I think LAN and MP without relying on epic servers or anything.
(Tim Sweeney also has had some prime CEO nonsense hypocritical twitter takes for ages now)

Correct, they cannot be bought legitimately on any platform. Who does that to their company’s and engine’s own history?

[NotASnowman]

Originally posted by jedimindtrickonyou:

Originally posted by Nathan:

Don't forget pulling Unreal off of digital stores, I think they don't even sell them on the EGS, just pulled completely, and it was perfectly playable, solo & I think LAN and MP without relying on epic servers or anything.
(Tim Sweeney also has had some prime CEO nonsense hypocritical twitter takes for ages now)

Correct, they cannot be bought legitimately on any platform. Who does that to their company’s and engine’s own history?

Some of Epic's decisions baffle me. They also pulled the Infinity Blade series from mobile. As in, they removed the most critically acclaimed mobile game series of its era from all platforms for no well-defined reason, with some vague talk about it no longer met their standards of quality and no longer representing who they are as a company.

They then proceeded to start releasing clones of other successful mobile games. So, a critically acclaimed original game series that is widely considered to be among the greatest game series ever made for mobile is not up to their quality standards, but shameless knock-offs of match-3 puzzle games are.

Now I hear they gave Unreal, the game that their flagship engine is named after, the game series that put their company on the map, that very same treatment.

Decisions like this will never make sense to me.

[Weruat]

Originally posted by NotASnowman:

Originally posted by jedimindtrickonyou:

Correct, they cannot be bought legitimately on any platform. Who does that to their company’s and engine’s own history?

Some of Epic's decisions baffle me. They also pulled the Infinity Blade series from mobile. As in, they removed the most critically acclaimed mobile game series of its era from all platforms for no well-defined reason, with some vague talk about it no longer met their standards of quality and no longer representing who they are as a company.

They then proceeded to start releasing clones of other successful mobile games. So, a critically acclaimed original game series that is widely considered to be among the greatest game series ever made for mobile is not up to their quality standards, but shameless knock-offs of match-3 puzzle games are.

Now I hear they gave Unreal, the game that their flagship engine is named after, the game series that put their company on the map, that very same treatment.

Decisions like this will never make sense to me.

They are basically deleting all identity besides being Fortnite at this point.

[NotASnowman]

Originally posted by Weruat:

They are basically deleting all identity besides being Fortnite at this point.

It's sad.

[Jedimindtrickonyou]

Originally posted by Eldin:

It’s because EGS will eye games like this, especially Selaco, and be like I don’t care you are playing or highly interested in the game but whole game or the remaining chapters will be exclusive for a year or two to Epic players only. Not that something like that will happen here, but that is their typical move.

Good thing it doesn’t matter since no one is buying games there, I claim the free ones but that’s it. They’d be better off taking some of that money they spent on free games and adding basic features to their launcher. You still can’t move a game from one drive on your PC to a different drive, and if you do move it using file explorer, there’s no way to inform the launcher of the new location. There’s no way the store is profitable with them giving away high-profile games during the holidays. Only game I ever bought there was Alan Wake 2 and I really didn’t want to but had no choice if I wanted to play it on PC.

[Dev]

Originally posted by Palandus:

Best guess: Unreal Tournament 4 is trash and as they have a mod level for Deck 15 (inspired by Deck 13 in Unreal Tournament) and there will likely never again be another Unreal Tournament game, they probably don't like Epic much at the moment.

Originally posted by jedimindtrickonyou:

Delisting the Unreal series really annoyed me. I grew up playing classic FPS games like Doom and Quake back in the late 90s/early 2000s on PC but I missed the Unreal series. Now that I’m into retro shooters again, I would love to buy and play them and I can’t because of their dumb decision. Thank you for the insight though, I appreciate your answer.

I wonder what was going on though their heads trying to bury their flagship game that popularized their flagship 3D engine. Sure, Jazz Jackrabbit was popular back then but Unreal is where they took off along with their engine. It's still pisses me off that UE still uses the Unreal Tournament logo even when they havent made a game in 17 years. And no, I don't think UE4 counts since that one was a early access game reliant on the community to keep adding content.

[Jedimindtrickonyou]

Originally posted by Dev:

Originally posted by Palandus:

Best guess: Unreal Tournament 4 is trash and as they have a mod level for Deck 15 (inspired by Deck 13 in Unreal Tournament) and there will likely never again be another Unreal Tournament game, they probably don't like Epic much at the moment.

Originally posted by jedimindtrickonyou:

Delisting the Unreal series really annoyed me. I grew up playing classic FPS games like Doom and Quake back in the late 90s/early 2000s on PC but I missed the Unreal series. Now that I’m into retro shooters again, I would love to buy and play them and I can’t because of their dumb decision. Thank you for the insight though, I appreciate your answer.

I wonder what was going on though their heads trying to bury their flagship game that popularized their flagship 3D engine. Sure, Jazz Jackrabbit was popular back then but Unreal is where they took off along with their engine. It's still pisses me off that UE still uses the Unreal Tournament logo even when they havent made a game in 17 years. And no, I don't think UE4 counts since that one was a early access game reliant on the community to keep adding content.

I think it’s similar to what an earlier comment mentioned- they only want to be known for Fortnite/Epic Games Store/Unreal Engine (but not the Unreal series of games). I really think they are almost embarrassed by their single player and non-live-service multiplayer games from the past. Thankfully, you can still buy Jazz Jackrabbit games on GoG but they could eventually pull them too.

[Jedimindtrickonyou]

Originally posted by Eldin:

Jazz Jackrabbit and Commander Keen were my favorite. Thankfully on GOG and on Steam if a game is later pulled you still own and can play it, and on Steam can still see guides. Not sure if Epic does that.

Originally posted by jedimindtrickonyou:

I think it’s similar to what an earlier comment mentioned- they only want to be known for Fortnite/Epic Games Store/Unreal Engine (but not the Unreal series of games). I really think they are almost embarrassed by their single player and non-live-service multiplayer games from the past. Thankfully, you can still buy Jazz Jackrabbit games on GoG but they could eventually pull them too.

I had them on my wishlist when they got delisted. I love Jazz Jackrabbit also, I discovered the shareware version that came pre-installed on my Grandpa’s old Acer PC from the late 90s as a kid, I honestly prefer it over Mario and Sonic. I should probably grab them on GoG during the next sale. But that would be unforgivable if you couldn’t play games you bought already even if delisted, although I could see Sony doing something like that on PlayStation one day. Them and Nintendo both won’t give refunds like Steam will, Microsoft is a little better though.

[Nexxtic]

I do not know who Tim Sweeney is, I only know Tom Swooney and he delisted some of Dawn's favorite games.

[Jedimindtrickonyou]

Originally posted by Nexxtic:

I do not know who Tim Sweeney is, I only know Tom Swooney and he delisted some of Dawn's favorite games.

Gotcha, thanks for the answer, Nexxtic. I’ll make sure to hit him right between the eyes on the dart board, so Dawn can enjoy some revenge.

[Sgt Snoke Em]

Let's be fair, we all wish we didn't know who "Tom Swooney" was lol

Ok and F.....ornicate EGS!

Also Devs.... Love your work so far.

Switch release some day if the ol girl can handle it?

I'd double dip.

Done it already with the Quakes, Ion Fury (gog), Xeno Crisis (gog), system shock remake (gog and Series X... I wanted a physical), Dusk, Yada Yada.

[Cadaver747]

I have nothing against EGS except for some bizarre long-term exclusive deals (Metro Exodus anyone?).
But delisting every Unreal game was an insane move, and they even closed Unreal Tournament 4. Unless Digital Extremes somehow forced them to pay royalties for every game, which is hard to believe, I can not see any good reason doing so.
But that's not all, I just can not comprehend the idea of selling some old games on GOG (e.g. Jazz Jackrabbit) and nowhere else, not even on their own EGS - what's the business point in that?

[Jedimindtrickonyou]

Originally posted by Sgt Snoke Em:

Let's be fair, we all wish we didn't know who "Tom Swooney" was lol

Ok and F.....ornicate EGS!

Also Devs.... Love your work so far.

Switch release some day if the ol girl can handle it?

I'd double dip.

Done it already with the Quakes, Ion Fury (gog), Xeno Crisis (gog), system shock remake (gog and Series X... I wanted a physical), Dusk, Yada Yada.

Switch port seems extremely unlikely, it would be severely cutdown in graphical effects and limited to 30fps if it could run at all. Selaco is really demanding on the Steam Deck which is significantly more powerful (4x the GPU compute compared to docked mode and 3.5x the bandwidth, with a much stronger CPU). And there's the engine too, there's not an easy way to get GZDoom on the switch, plus there are a lot of customizations on top of that. It could be viable for Nintendo's next system or PS5 though. Plus, early access isn't really a thing on PS5 or Switch, only Xbox has something like that.

[NotASnowman]

Originally posted by Cadaver747:

But that's not all, I just can not comprehend the idea of selling some old games on GOG (e.g. Jazz Jackrabbit) and nowhere else, not even on their own EGS - what's the business point in that?

Oh, the GOG side of things makes sense: GOG isn't just a storefront, it's a refurbishing service. Games sold on GOG that don't run on modern hardware natively get repackaged by GOG to include third-party patches that Epic Games would not have license to use.

For Epic Games to sell old games on EGS, it would mean either selling them unsupported, or maintaining support for them in-house. That's likely the real reason they pulled their old games; not wanting the expense of maintaining them for modern systems, or the stigma of selling software that doesn't work. However, maintaining games isn't expensive, especially not for Epic Games, and if done well it should pay for itself. All they need to do is put one software engineer to the task, and likely not full-time. The games don't need constant maintenance; many would just need widescreen support, and that's forwards-compatible.

[Cadaver747]

Originally posted by NotASnowman:

Oh, the GOG side of things makes sense: GOG isn't just a storefront, it's a refurbishing service. Games sold on GOG that don't run on modern hardware natively get repackaged by GOG to include third-party patches that Epic Games would not have license to use.

For Epic Games to sell old games on EGS, it would mean either selling them unsupported, or maintaining support for them in-house. That's likely the real reason they pulled their old games; not wanting the expense of maintaining them for modern systems, or the stigma of selling software that doesn't work. However, maintaining games isn't expensive, especially not for Epic Games, and if done well it should pay for itself. All they need to do is put one software engineer to the task, and likely not full-time. The games don't need constant maintenance; many would just need widescreen support, and that's forwards-compatible.

Yeah, I would agree if it wasn't for the old, free for all, DOSBox. Some publishers even took GOG distributives of their games (with .conf files) and put those on Steam (in some cases without cleaning GOG specific files), I still can't see what's the problem with *maintaining* the DOSBox, especially given that not only DOSBox was not updated since 2019, and in some rare cases DOS games are still bundled with outdated versions.

Selling old titles on GOG is nice, but selling those on your own store as well would be only reasonable. For me it's like Tim wants nothing more than to forget Epic Games' legacy.