UT3 Conspiracy Theories

[Evil Avatar]

Emabulator and I were talking about this last night (Via Steam chat. Viva Steam!)...

Does anyone else find it odd that Epic games is going back to Unreal Tournament 3 -- a title that was released in November 2007 -- and now all of the sudden they are going to patch it, add Steam achievements and come out with 'their largest expansion pack ever'.

Why? GoGamer has been selling this title for $9.90 or less for over six months. UT3 is bargain bin material at this point.

Epic basically dumped this title on the market with no support. After years of being the 'We support our games' guys Epic has suddenly become Microsoft's Bitch and put the Gears of War franchise as their highest priority.

Could this signal some behind the scenes drama? Is Epic trying to bring back the love to their core franchise? Are they trying to get people playing Unreal Tournament 3 before releasing Unreal Tournament 4?

And the biggest question... will the Titan Pack be heading to the Xbox 360 or Playstation 3?

Discuss.

[GaymerFreek09]

who knows mebbe theyre trying to compete with Quake Live.

[Evil Avatar]

who knows mebbe theyre trying to compete with Quake Live.

Do you think anyone is even going to play Quake Live? It is just Quake 3 Arena in a browser window.

Most everyone gave up on Quake 3 Arena years ago and if you don't want to give up on it, just go buy the game for $2.00 from Ebay.

I think Quake Live is an example of people getting excited about getting into a free beta and the second they game is released they will just give up on it because who wants to pay to play something they could have been playing for free for the last 5+ years.

[Rambilin]

There is something zen like about Quake 3/Quake Live. I've put in a few hours into the beta and I could see it being like Desktop Defender, something I have book marked, can put a few minutes into every now and again after a stressful day and just exit without any fuss or worry.

As far as UT3 goes I really do hope this is a behind the scenes coup of the old mentality taking over. I remember playing the original UT and UT 2004 to death but with UT3 I played it for like a day and put it aside. I think I played Quake Territories more than UT3 and I didn't really care for that either.

[Vandenh]

This is just people being freed up after Gears to work back on other projects (titan pack0

[Suicidal ShiZuru]

This is just people being freed up after Gears to work back on other projects (titan pack0

This makes sense but I doubt its that simple.

Is Epic trying to bring back the love to their core franchise? Are they trying to get people playing Unreal Tournament 3 before releasing Unreal Tournament 4?

And the biggest question... will the Titan Pack be heading to the Xbox 360 or Playstation 3?

What is Epic without Unreal? Nothing.

If people dont get interested in the series again UT4 will most likely fail, which in my opinion there is a medium to high chance of already since it will probably play like GoW Tournament. The update is going to be a tease of what UT4 will potentially offer. I was a huge UT fanboy until this Gears bullshit and I feel like I got the finger from Epic throughout all of it and this is their reach around, but hey Ive gone soft.

As for the Titan Pack going to consoles, it wouldnt suprise me at all since theyre on the MS tit.

[Virtuoso]

Its only been a little more than a year, and tons of games coming out still use the Unreal 3 engine. Why would Epic damage the viability of a current product by coming out with a sequel so quickly?

Honestly, the thing I am most disappointed with when it comes to UT3 is the lack of fan support, which cannot be entirely blamed on Epic. UT2, UT2004, etc all had amazing mods, which UT3 does not.

[see colon]

My guess would be that they are trying to spur Steam sales of UT3 (this assumes they make more money on the Steam version than they do boxed). Allowing current owners of the retail UT3 is just their way of not screwing over current customers. Plus, if you already own UT3, and you register it on Steam, you'll probably play it a bit to check out the patch, creating some new buzz about the game. Plus, Steam is DRM, so they can change up their copy protection scheme to prevent pirates from playing their game.

Really, who cares. We're getting free content and features for a game that many of us already own, and/or the cost of ownership is super low on.

[divinechaos]

I want them to support the game for 360/PS3. I bought the game when it came out and while I was happy with it it doesn't compare to the other Unreal games.

[Syl]

I'm honestly hoping that this is going to also involve some sort of Gears of War 2 PC announcement hiding within it. I also think that they're deciding to use it as a way to show that games sell on STEAM combined with maybe trying a couple ideas out before they release them for good on a future game.

It's really strange overall though...

[alienchild]

This reminds me of what happened to Unreal 2 (which coincidentally is my favorite Unreal-game of all time...); it sold like shit and was a big letdown, and got an expansion that didn't do diddely squat.

[Illuminus]

Wasn't there rumours about an add-on for UT3? I can see a UT2003/2004 stunt happening again. That said, i don't mind if it happens. Secretly i do want UT to be a success, i have liked the game and engine back from Unreal/Unreal Tournament.

[Johan]

What were the sales for UT III on the respective platforms? It seems to me the title just never got any kind of traction with the gaming community at all. There was virtually no buzz about it prior to launch or immediately afterwards.

Perhaps they've killed their true core franchise, and are just now realizing it? :confused:

[Evil Avatar]

What were the sales for UT III on the respective platforms? It seems to me the title just never got any kind of traction with the gaming community at all. There was virtually no buzz about it prior to launch or immediately afterwards.

Perhaps they've killed their true core franchise, and are just now realizing it? :confused:

I don't know the sales on the respective platforms, however I do remember reading that UT3 on the PC bombed hard -- I'm thinking less than 100k copies and that UT3 on the PS3 only moved about 300k copies.

Mark Rein has said that the franchise sold over a Million copies combined across all three platforms, but you know those numbers will include international sales.

I'm not sure what inspired this sudden return to their roots. First we get rumors of an Unreal Tournament 3 expansion pack -- their biggest expansion pack ever -- and then word of the UT3 patch and the Steam Achievements and on top of all that Rein posted something yesterday about them adding some content to Gears of War 2.

It is almost like someone woke up over there one day and said, "Hey, we aren't acting like Epic Games any more we are doing the same 'release and dump' that everyone else does." and they decided to take some of the Millions and Millions in profit that they have made and give back to the people who purchased their products.

This is very smart from a business standpoint because without support the next Unreal Tournament title would have been a flop. Gears would do fine without support, but why take the chance?

[Alexious]

IMHO, you really are better off going back and playing UT2K4 rather than UT3. Perhaps this patch will change that? As others have said, I really hope so. I have some wonderful memories from playing UT2K4 and I'd like to see the brand continue to succeed.

Maybe it'll end up like Star Trek where only the even numbered games in the series are good?!?

[blackzc]

Who plays FPSs on a console? *points and snickers* tee hee.

[Wyrm]

I have UT3 for 360, because it was dirt cheap, and because I'd heard good things. I've actually enjoyed the time I've spent with it, though it is vastly superior on the PC.

It is not as good as UT2k4, but I think they know that now. I hope they come up with something completely different for the next go 'round.

And now that I think about it, Gears plays an awful lot like a single player version of Unreal Championship with a cover system.

[Emabulator]

I don't know the sales on the respective platforms, however I do remember reading that UT3 on the PC bombed hard -- I'm thinking less than 100k copies and that UT3 on the PS3 only moved about 300k copies.I know they sold more than 100k copies of the PC version. After not playing for a long time my ranking dropped from somewhere in the 60k range to below 320k. Considering I have more than twice as many kills as deaths in deathmatch I doubt I'm ranked absolute last.

It's been a while since the patch and 'Titan Pack' were announced, I hope they're coming soon.

[WpnX]

In a Call of Duty 4 world, you can't release a traditional Unreal Tournament.

[Borys]

Hey Evil now that you are using Steam very often do you think it can catch up to Xbox Live! or is it the other way around (Live! catching up to Steam)?