HIRE more PR to RESPOND TO THREADS

[S0L0]

Unity Forums/Community way more helpful than Unreal.

So many threads on Unreal with lots of views and barely any responses.

Hire some more moderators with UE4/ Game Dev experience and actually bring some life to the forums/community.

[IronicParadox]

Ask yourself this: Will helping a few people, that mostly use UE as a hobby, bring Epic more money than they would spend on the wages of the people they would have to hire?

[KVogler]

Ask yourself this: Will helping a few people, that mostly use UE as a hobby, bring Epic more money than they would spend on the wages of the people they would have to hire?

Well, that might be actually be possible, although not exactly quantifiable.
If it leads rto more users switch from Unity to UE because of the excellent support (also for hobby users) then it might produce more projects that cross the royalty threshold and the 5% kick in...

But: As said, you couldnt make a prediction on the dollars and cents it would/could bring you. So its not an attractive course of action.
Its the same song in almost any company. When I suggest an improvement/change to my boss, his first question is: How much exactly are ge saving/gaining?
When I cant guarantee exact numbers, the idea is usually off the table. Managers resent uncertainty...

[BrUnO XaVIeR]

The only thing that matters now is Fortnite.

And don't say lies, people asking for help on Unity forums only get morons making fun of them instead of answering the actual question.
They have a much better "answers.com" community, but forums? meh.

[UnrealEnterprise]

Once upon a time, when it suited Epic, they were really interactive and helpful. Namely, when UE4 was first released, as UE4 was pretty unpolished / unstable. But now, Epic don't even care if the bad forums UX is turning devs off. Ever since Alex P left last year, Epic have retrenched / refocused on other things: Enterprise / UDN / Fortnite etc. Maybe this was inevitable, Epic is a business after all. But what happens next time when UE5 is released?

With all those developers return....

Maybe.....

Or maybe many will be lost to Lumberyard etc....

[IronicParadox]

I've said something similar to this in another thread before, but probably only around 1 in 100,000 people, that develop with UE, will publish a game that earns enough to have to pay royalties. The people that ARE making good money with the engine, don't really rely on the forums to make their game for them. They might ask a question here and there or request a bug fix, but for the most part, they don't need the forums as a crutch.

Having more Epic forum presence is not going to magically make them more money just because a bunch of hobbyists had some questions answered.

[UnrealEnterprise]

Around 1 in 100,000 people that develop with UE, will publish a game that earns enough to have to pay royalties / Having more Epic forum presence is not going to magically make them more money just because a bunch of hobbyists had some questions answered.

I guess it comes down to whether you feel hobbyists add any indirect value to Epic, or whether they're just there to detract/distract.
So devalue the role of hobbyists if you like, but many helped make UE4 more stable since 2014, and still add value in lots of ways....
Creating Resources / Tools that help explain or show how things work (saving Epic from having to devote more resources to docs).
Hobbyists spot errors and give feedback and file bug reports too (or they did before Epic's 'new improved' bug-submission-report).

[S0L0]

But: As said, you couldnt make a prediction on the dollars and cents it would/could bring you. So its not an attractive course of action.
Its the same song in almost any company. When I suggest an improvement/change to my boss, his first question is: How much exactly are ge saving/gaining?
When I cant guarantee exact numbers, the idea is usually off the table. Managers resent uncertainty...

This is a good point; however I would not compare building a strong community to calculating return on investment for dollars spent on marketing/advertising. Having a widespread, thriving, and growing community is really invaluable for any company. For example Unity has its Unite conference every year where Unity developers from around the world gather and share their experiences with the engine, hobbyists, indies, AAA developers, etc. On top of that there are weekly local community meetups that take place for game developers from around the area and over 95% of the time they are using Unity.

Unreal needs to follow-suit with Unity and hire some "evangelist" the same way Unity does. Not only does UE4 offer a more robust toolset, it is Open Source! How can Unity be more popular than Unreal Engine if its not even open source?

If a propriety software like Unity can have that kind of community, than Epic should have nothing stopping it from surpassing Unity. IMO Epic just needs to spend more resources in growing the community and bringing some more life to the forums while its at it. I honestly got an email notification from Epic about a question I posted nearly 3 YEARS AGO! It was such a simple question too!

Wouldn't it be amazing if UE4 hosted a developer conference every year! Common Epic! There should be no excuse why Unity is winning!

[F3NR1S]

There are many weekly local community meetups that take place for game developers from around the area for UE: https://www.unrealengine.com/en-US/user-groups
It is just a matter of time for UE to surpass Unity. The explosive growth of the last two years is an indication.
I am glad to see you got an answer from your question, even if late, it means technical debt from the past is caught up, a very good sign for stability and healthiness.
Epic has hosted numerous events in the past, I remember one in Paris back in 2007, a dev conference is on the drawing board, I am sure of it.

[darthviper107]

Part of the value of UE4 isn't whether indie games make money from it, but whether there's developers that use it, it makes it easier for the AAA studios to choose UE4 as their engine if they know they can hire people experienced with the engine.

As far as the forums go, the people that work on the forum itself aren't the same as the developers.
In terms of actual technical support it's probably more worthwhile to have developers with engine experience actually developing on the engine rather than answering questions on the forum. I would say though that the community team at Epic hasn't been as engaged with the forum as they used to be.