Epic's behaviour regards Blezinski's Boss Key studios (Boss Key now closed)
- Thread starter Cyan
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Tkumpathenurple
Veteran
Are there any laws against poaching staff?
The saddest thing is, this utter lack of ethics is paying off handsomely.
The saddest thing is, this utter lack of ethics is paying off handsomely.
Are you being sarcastic?
If not, firstly games companies copy other people's ideas. Gamers also like that as it progresses the genres - if no-one copied the Battle Royale formula, the only take we'd have is PUBG, and that's not to everyone's taste. Heck, we'd only have DOOM or whatever because no-one else would have unethically copied the FPS concept. Secondly, companies go head-hunting. That's part of business and why people put themselves on LinkedIn, to get a better deal at another company.
So Epic is operating like many other games companies. If that's unethical, then the entire working world is unethical and I don't see why Epic should be pulled up on it. Especially when the makers of PUBG are being douches and Boss Key games are making their own 'unethical' clone of Battle Royale in Radical Heights.*
(* hence my wondering if you're being sarcastic)
Tkumpathenurple
Veteran
That's a fair point, but when Epic introduced a Battle Royale mode after helping with PUBG's code, it already seemed that they were being unethical.
So when they then start hiring people away from a new potential competitor, I perceive that as an attempt to eliminate or stymie competition.
With Fortnite making $1.8 million a day, hiring some key members of staff from a competitor wouldn't even touch a day's worth of revenue - they could even be surplus to Epic's requirements - but it would be enough to stop said competitor in their tracks.
So when they then start hiring people away from a new potential competitor, I perceive that as an attempt to eliminate or stymie competition.
With Fortnite making $1.8 million a day, hiring some key members of staff from a competitor wouldn't even touch a day's worth of revenue - they could even be surplus to Epic's requirements - but it would be enough to stop said competitor in their tracks.
Epic was paid money to do customizations to their engine for PUBG. Epic took those customizations and some specifics from PUBG and incorporated it into their floundering FortNite game.
Other companies doing bad things does not make it acceptable for Epic doing bad things.
https://www.pcgamer.com/pubg-exec-c...t-about-the-idea-itself-its-about-epic-games/
PC Gamer: So it's not the mode you guys have an issue with. From your statement or your press release earlier today, it said that there were similarities in the UI, and the other things mentioned were the gameplay and structural replication in the battle royale mode. Can you specify exactly, if you're not objecting to a battle royale mode in another game, then what do you mean by concerns about gameplay?
There are a lot of different issues but everyone else that released a battle royale game mode made their own thing, but it was Epic Games that made this game that is similar to us that has similar elements, and that's the concern, that it was Epic Games.
We use Unreal Engine to develop PUBG, and we pay a large amount of royalties based on the size of our success to Epic Games, and Epic Games always promoted their licensing models [saying] "We want to support the success indie developers", and [Bluehole is] this indie developer that has been the most successful one using the Unreal Engine this year, and that's the problem that I see.
So if, say, you had no real connection with Epic through the Unreal Engine, say you used another engine, or this battle royale mode was from some other company you don't have that connection with, it wouldn't be an issue? It's specifically because it's Epic and you licensed their engine, is that correct?
So, battle royale is just about last man standing, it's a simple game mode, and we're not claiming any kind of ownership over the game mode or genre itself, it's not for us to even comment. There were a lot of copycats in China and [in that] industry there is a lot of battle royale games that look exactly [the] same as ours, so we will definitely look into similarities if there are different products that are very similar to our game, but even before we actually looked deeper into how similar [Fortnite Battle Royale] is, we wanted to raise an issue because this is from Epic Games. We could be the biggest indie success story that they have and there will be other indie developers that aspire to succeed like us using Unreal Engine, and they would be concerned, right? So we just wanted to raise an issue and let people know that it can be a problem.
I didn't say it does. But if you're going to call one company out on it, you should call them all out.
That's a different issue to the two your raised and definitely poor form.
I simplified the statement down to the basic premise that Epic is unethical and goes towards their behavior that they will steal anything they can that benefits them.
ehhh. this is where gaming is still a maturing industry. In other industries there are clauses about leaving to a competitor. Like you cannot poach other people with you as well. ie. Company A and B.
Employee A goes to B
B needs more people
asks A for more
A wants to rebuild his successful team from A to be in B
he poaches all his people over to B
^^ there are clauses in place to stop this type of thing.
At a high enough level, there are also clauses to stop people from going to a competitor for a designated period of time (obvious reasons)
But it's unlikely to happen at the lower ranks. If CliffyB wants to stop epic from poaching, he needs to offer a better package than Epic, and that will largely be about not being paid more since clearly Epic can whoop him in that department. not everyone is driven by money unless it's a canyon of a divide.
ufff, it's been a long time ever since I was a fan of Epic and those practices just tell me that I was on the right track. I stopped being a fan of Epic after Gears of War and the huge amount of games which used that engine with a very similar art style to Gears and imho, a low performance overall (30 fps was the norm) in addition to broken AA or no AA at all, although the engine tended to work well on PCs. Before Gears of War, Unreal (the original) and Unreal Tournament or Unreal The Liandry Conflict for the original Xbox made me a big fan of the company but after that...
There are better engines now than Unreal engine, thankfully (Unity for instance).
Being a fan of company should not impact wether or not if its okay to break rules/laws. I am not saying that Epic did or did not.
I am reading this as, Cliffy B, knows that he has no leg to stand on legally, so he uses his "fame" to get the audience to rally against Epic.
So in my book Epic is being douchy for poaching and Cliffy is being douchy for fighting back in that way, neither is doing anything illegal.
Clauses are fine, but usually that means some sort of compensation for having them inserted. And depending on local laws they might be illegal.
In Norway, you can not enforce them unless you compensate in someway and I think its not considered a breach if that is the only job opportunity you have.
Example
You work for company A, they give you a clause that says you can not go from A to B without a quarantine period. Then company A must pay you during the period. And company B have to wait.
Or you get laid of from company A and you get an offer from company B. Then they can not stop you from talking the job, since you they can not deny you an income/work.
Heck, even without clauses, when you put in your resignation (in norway that is 3 months, unless you got a contract that amends that somehow), you get put on gardening leave. I have "tons" of friends that usually plan their next move to coincide with summer, ie 3 month paid vacation
Anyway its not like the employee is forced to move to Epic. And if Epic is a toxic place, they will not be able to recruit.
I am reading this as, Cliffy B, knows that he has no leg to stand on legally, so he uses his "fame" to get the audience to rally against Epic.
So in my book Epic is being douchy for poaching and Cliffy is being douchy for fighting back in that way, neither is doing anything illegal.
Clauses are fine, but usually that means some sort of compensation for having them inserted. And depending on local laws they might be illegal.
In Norway, you can not enforce them unless you compensate in someway and I think its not considered a breach if that is the only job opportunity you have.
Example
You work for company A, they give you a clause that says you can not go from A to B without a quarantine period. Then company A must pay you during the period. And company B have to wait.
Or you get laid of from company A and you get an offer from company B. Then they can not stop you from talking the job, since you they can not deny you an income/work.
Heck, even without clauses, when you put in your resignation (in norway that is 3 months, unless you got a contract that amends that somehow), you get put on gardening leave. I have "tons" of friends that usually plan their next move to coincide with summer, ie 3 month paid vacation
Anyway its not like the employee is forced to move to Epic. And if Epic is a toxic place, they will not be able to recruit.
Tkumpathenurple
Veteran
Woah, 3 months paid leave between jobs?! Do you guys have a pretty liberal immigration policy???
If yes, can you get me a job?
If yes, can you get me a job?
The immigration policy has been tightened in the last years. But as a professional its easier for certain markets, basically anything to do with oil, but you need an employment contract with a company that can vouch for you etc.
The 3 months you get if your company puts you on gardening leave, not everybody do.
My last employer, did not do that with me. My boss said : "Sorry, I am going on vacation and you have 2 projects to wrap up. Do that and run the office while I am gone, kthxbye"
Then again, I should not complain, they paid for the setup of my company, credit limit and gave me contracts that sustained us for the first 2 years.
D
Deleted member 11852
Guest
These are not remotely legal in most countries. Apple, Google and Intel had to settle with the US DoJ in 2015 over such anti-poaching agreements and all were fortunate that this happened in the US and not the EU where penalties are far more severe.
oh really. i need to look at those Canadian clauses
Yeah, imagine the performance of PUBG on Unity
Frostbite would most probably be a better engine to base PUBG on, but that is not available to non-EA devs.
D
Deleted member 11852
Guest
That will only tell you what companies think they can get away with in Canada, you need to look to see if such cases have been brought to a Canadian court because that's the absolute test of the law. If Canada has any for civil anti-trust legislation governing wage-fixing then it's likely Canada would take a similar view to the US and EU, which it should because fundamentally this partly about equality and freedom of rights and partly about companies not owning people which are fairly universal views in western culture.
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