The drum Tim Sweeney is beating here, that freemium is the way of the future, is one that has been apparent to a lot of people since the early days of Nexon’s Kart Rider in South Korea circa 2004-2006. But for Sweeney to beat that drum, and back it up with actual scalable tech and production pipelines in Unreal 4, is a watershed moment for AAA development.

And note his big reveal, which Gamasutra should have led with: Infinity Blade has the best ROI of any title Epic has ever shipped. No wonder Epic is changing gears, and good on them for not being stuck in the past.

Epic's Sweeney: Platform convergence, freemium the inevitable future

In a GDC Taipei keynote, Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney discussed how his company is pushing high end graphics, and how western games need to learn from the Asian market and its business models.