LogIn"We've heard the feedback, and we're doing a lot to redeploy the teams to update everything and get on track."
In case you missed it, earlier this month the Unreal Engine team shared its annual Year in Review presentation, discussing the latest updates for Unreal Engine 5 and UEFN and reflecting on what 2024 meant for the company.
During the podcast, Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney addressed one of the game development industry's most contentious topics this year – Epic's new online marketplace Fab – acknowledging the platform's challenges at launch, apologizing for its shortcomings, and pledging to prioritize implementing requested features and resolving existing issues.
"[Fab] got off to a rocky launch, I'd really like to apologize to everybody for the state of Fab when it launched," Sweeney said. "We have huge aspirations, but what we launched was just a very basic version of what's coming. And the team understands that, we've heard the feedback, and we're doing a lot to redeploy the teams to update everything and get on track."
The CEO also commented on the merger of the Unreal Engine Marketplace and Sketchfab Marketplace into Fab, claiming that the change didn't affect asset merchants much if at all, with most sellers performing at levels similar to those on the Unreal Engine Marketplace.
"The one bit of good news is that there was a huge, massive changeover from Unreal Engine Marketplace and Sketchfab Marketplace to Fab, but the business continues to go strong for sellers. The seller performance is about the same as it was on Unreal Engine Marketplace – not a drop – despite some loss of search functionality and other core features."
Finally, Sweeney discussed Fab's most notable feature – cross-engine asset ownership – highlighting a new group of Unity developers who joined the marketplace and thanking creators who participated in the transition and have been patient with the changes as Epic navigated them.
"Now we have a whole new cohort of Unity asset developers coming in and marketing their stuff on Fab, with the key feature being cross-engine ownership. You buy an asset once, and it works in Unreal, it works in Unity, and you have versions of it for DCC tools. It's really trying to aspire to be a more universal thing. I'd like to express gratitude for all the creators who participated in the transition and have been putting up with the changes as we've gone through them. I'm really grateful for everybody's participation."
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