Introduction: Where does the sense of technological monopoly crisis come from?
In 2023, the operating system, we use Windows, the mobile system, we use Android and iOS, and now, the game engine, we also use UE5 and Unity.
With AI before and Unreal in the back, the unemployment anxiety of technology workers has increased dramatically
Recently, at the launch conference of Epic Games' self-developed Unreal Engine 5, the newly announced MHA technology caused an uproar, following the era of unemployment crisis caused by AI technology to cause graphic art staff, Unreal 5's new expression motion capture, automatic modeling function or all 3D modelers also fell off the "cliff of unemployment". With the rapid pace of technological progress, the large-scale replacement of humans by machines and the crowding out of human jobs, the future depicted by cyberpunk as a place where humans are replaced by technology may really be getting closer.
Unreal Engine, which debuted as early as 1998, was originally just a test game specially designed by Epic Games for its eponymous FPS game, but it was unexpectedly favored by other game manufacturers. Taking this as an opportunity, Epic Games released Unreal Engine 2, Unreal Engine 3, and the Developer Kit in 2009.
And the turning point of all events, in the subsequent Unreal Engine 4, Epic Games will open source it for developers for free, but the overall revenue of the game needs to be recharged to pay EG proportionally, and the stand-alone game is not terrible, but if a long-term online game uses Unreal Engine 5, all subsequent paid revenue will face higher and higher revenue sharing.
Its powerful and convenient features have made it one of the most popular game engines for PC and console platforms. Over the past decade, nearly 100 games have been produced using Unreal Engine, including masterpieces such as Mass Effect, Rainbow Six, Dishonored, Octopath Traveler, and even the recently acclaimed Atomic Heart. The commercial and word-of-mouth success of these works further established the reputation of Unreal Engine, and it was at this time that Pandora's box quietly opened.
"Domestic games" crisis: 95% of foreign engine adoption rate, multi-billion dollar share
The accelerated popularity of Unreal Engine has made game development easier, and the mobile game Unreal 5 and mobile game Unity are almost "international conventions" that even players who do not know much about technology know.
It is understood that most of the products in the mainland under the name of "domestic games" are actually still using Unreal or Unity engine development from abroad, which will exceed 95% in 2023.
Although the game may be made by domestic developers, but the game engine is completely derived from foreign companies, on this basis, every profit of the game, can not bypass the engine commission, through the financial report disclosed in the anti-monopoly lawsuit between Epic Games and Apple, only in 2020, the domestic game industry entered a seriously ill year, Unreal Engine licensing commission brought more than 700 million revenue returns.
We turned our attention back to the domestic market, where Unreal Engine's market share was only higher than overseas. In addition to the well-known Black Myth Wukong, a number of domestic codename games that are still in development have all chosen Unreal Engine 5. It can be said that in the domestic game industry, choosing to embrace Unreal Engine 5 has become the general trend.
The old mobile game sector engine Unity undertakes the other half of the "tribute" of domestic mobile game companies, such as the recent Reverse Water Cold Mobile Game and other products, without exception also use the Unity engine. Integrating the total domestic game sales from 2020 to 2023, Unity and Unreal engines have taken at least billions of dollars of revenue share from the total amount of domestic players recharging to major domestic game manufacturers in the past three years.
This foreign technology monopoly phenomenon like boiling frogs in warm water makes many domestic game manufacturers feel comfortable, but there are also many sober people who smell the danger - Unity and UE's monopoly on game engine technology, compared with the situation when the United States hoped that the mainland would not develop communication satellites and provide them to us for free, we are all too familiar.
Project 863 may be about to break the game - the game industry is just one of the tech battlegrounds
In fact, at the end of the last century, the United States and other countries have never stopped pouring into the mainland's technological "warm water", from communication satellites, to computer operating systems, to mobile phone operating systems, foreign technology monopolies in various science and technology sectors have continued one after another.
In view of the danger of this phenomenon, in fact, the Ministry of Science and Technology of the mainland foresaw as early as 1986, and in March 1986, the national 863 program was launched, and it officially ended after completing its historical mission in 2016.
Today, under this program, we have our own space station
Benchmarking against the computer operating system Windows, the Kirin system is growing rapidly
Against the blockade of mobile phone operating system IOS and Android, Huawei Hongmeng OS is gradually regaining its disadvantage.
Compared with the game engine UE and Unity, many domestic engines under the 863 plan layout are also gradually heating up.
The Sky Saber and Infinite Law developed by QuickSliverX engine built by Tencent Northern Lights for 10 years, with its amazing performance, ended in the first collision between "Sky Saber" and its mobile game and the game "Against the Water and Cold" developed with the Unity engine, making foreign engine manufacturers "deflated" for the first time.
At the same time, the Jianwang 3 developed by the domestic engine DX under the 863 plan has dominated the MMO field in China for more than ten years with a huge DAU of similar faulty products.
From this, it is not difficult to see that although foreign engines are menacing, when domestic manufacturers insist on choosing self-research and self-development and strive to contribute to the technology sector, domestic players will also express strong support.
The day before yesterday, the representative work of the domestic DX engine under the sword network 3 official micro announced the news about the comprehensive replacement of the DX engine - Spirit Engine, which will be released soon. It is reported that the research and development of the "Spirit Realm" engine has cost 1 billion yuan, in addition to the upgraded ray tracing, DLSS and other technologies under DX, virtual geometry, virtual mapping technology, etc., will improve the screen performance by more than 30% on the existing basis, while reducing the most likely lag problem of domestic engines, a reduction of about 70%, and for the overall loading speed of nearly 25% acceleration, and 50% of the package body reduction, many industry insiders believe that "Spirit Realm" Whether it is from the release time or from the information released by the first exposure, it is the intention to "sword" Unreal 5.
Judging from its name, the naming of the "Spirit Realm" engine seems to be a tribute to the Chinese flavor metaverse plan proposed by Comrade Qian Xuesen. Judging from the actual picture issued by the follow-up official of Sword Network 3, "Spirit Realm" is by no means an April Fool's joke, and domestic technology is about to move the real thing.
At present, many domestic investors are looking forward to the future development of Lingjing Engine, such as "Lingjing" and other domestic excellent engines can one day be sold on a large scale in China, and the era of being divided by the Unreal and Unity monopoly engine market may really end.
Ever since OpenAI crushed the TI champion OG team in Dota 2, people have discovered that game development is closely related to technological progress. As early as 1986, our ancestors foresaw the intention of technological monopoly and blockade of us by foreign science and technology industries at this time.
Fortunately, we still have a series of self-developed technology industries such as Huawei's Hongmeng OS, Tencent's QuickSliverX, Xishanju's Lingjing and so on.
In the future, we would like to believe that there will be more and more "domestic good games" that are truly "domestic" from beginning to end and do not need to pay Americans a penny.