Love them or loathe them, it’s hard to deny that over what has largely represented a remarkably small period of time, Epic Games has cemented its position as one of the biggest gaming companies in the world. – Following a report via DSOGaming, however, they have just added a new and very interesting addition to their intellectual property roster.
What you ask? Well, have you ever booted up a game to see the ‘Bink Video’ logo at the start? Seen it mentioned in a games credits? – Well, following official confirmation from Epic Games, they now own Rad Game Tools who produce this software!
If you’re not aware of exactly what ‘Bink Video’ is, then, in brief, it’s a compression tool widely used by lots (and I mean lots) of gaming developers. This is largely thanks to its high level of performance and quick rendering process. It is said, in fact, to have already been utilized within at least 20,000 titles which perhaps best highlights just how big this acquisition of ‘RAD’ is. – Put simply, with this move, Epic Games can now make the ‘Bink Video’ tool an inclusive part of their ‘Unreal Engine’ and more so, they can also make a very tidy bit of money licensing out its use to non-UE developers.
In announcing the acquisition, Epic Games has said:
“We know first-hand how impressive RAD’s compression technology is, having used it to improve the load time and quality of our most popular games – including Fortnite. The RAD team includes some of the world’s leading compression, video and game dev tooling experts, and we are thrilled to welcome them to the Epic family”
Just to reemphasize the point, Epic Games has been abundantly clear in stating that they have not purchased ‘RAD’ just to monopolize this technology on Unreal Engine based titles. They have made it very clear that all the software under the ‘RAD’ company will still be available to third-parties. Make no bones about it though, this is a very important deal for Epic Games and further goes onto highlight just how big a player they really are these days!
What do you think? – Let us know in the comments!
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