Rumour: Epic to focus on Tech only, exit Video Game Development?

[ltcommander.data]

http://www.nowgamer.com/features/989082/epic_games_interview_unreal_engine_nextgen.html

How important to Epic is it to have a flagship title like Unreal or Gears of War?

Alan Willard: It's the showcase for the current generation of the engine. When we first debuted Unreal Engine 3 at GDC it was using what eventually became Gears of War content. The Samaritan demo is not a game, it’s purely a showcase for the technology. So the game as example is fairly important from the engine side. We're shipping Gears of War 3 this year, we've shown it off as 'hey, look here's the current state of the engine'. It's very important to us because we are game developers. We’re not just making the engine, we’re making a game with the engine. It’s not an isolated thing.

Our licensees have constant access to our code. They may have access to a feature but we’re pretty clear when it’s not ready for full use. Part of the process of it becoming ready is our implementation of it in our games. We’re very careful not to implement things that we don’t actually use, purely because we don’t want it to be something that doesn’t get the attention it deserves.

MG: Hence Infinity Blade as well, that has proven our iOS offering by shipping a game. It’s very important for us to do that.

AW: And Shadow Complex is the Live Arcade, indie scale…

I suppose things could have changed in the last 2 years, but in 2011 Epic was very clear that they consider themselves game developers and they don't want to make an engine in isolation. Features may be available in the code for developers to use, but Epic doesn't consider it complete until they've used it themselves in a shipping game and they don't like implementing features they don't intend to use themselves.

Ken Levine recently told us about all the custom systems Irrational Games built for BioShock Infinite - an Unreal Engine game. Do you view UE as all-encompassing game tech, or a broader starting point on which to build games?

MG: I think it’s a broader platform. Certainly it can be used to build a very similar game to those that have built with it, but the real benefit of it is when you have an experienced studio that know that it’s going to take them 75 per cent of the way -deal with the boring stuff almost - and leave them 25 per cent creativity to really change stuff, and customise it; whether that be control methods, or visually or whatever it might be. That’s kind of the beauty of it. We’re not giving you an engine and saying ‘this is your solution and you’re rigidly compelled to do only what the engine can do.’ It’s extensible for each developer.

AW: A good example is [the original] Deus Ex. It was very close to stock Unreal Engine 2 at the time, and then they added a dialogue system, an inventory system. But everything else was the basic engine, and that went really well. Mass Effect has this huge dialogue system that’s completely their [BioWare’s] own, but the rendering is a lot of Unreal Engine features with their own stuff put on top of it rather than completely replacing the system. The advantage of middleware, like Mike said, is that it gets you 75 per cent of the way almost immediately – the challenge is then identifying ‘for my title, what do I need? What sets me apart from everything else?’ and then finding the places where it makes sense to implement your own, or licensing other middleware, whether it’s a navigation system, or lighting or whatever.

As to whether focusing on their own games results in a sub-optimal engine for licensees, their point of view seems to be that they don't intend UE to be the complete game engine for everyone. They just want to provide a stable base that licensees can use directly if they want, but preferably, licensees will customize and differentiate it for their needs.

Of course, with more competition in game engines now, perhaps game developers are just going to choose the most complete and broad game engine available. If Epic is actually moving away from game development and focusing on the engine, they probably no longer expect developers to put in the resources to customize the engine.

 

[astrograd]

MS had a job posting a few months back iirc looking for a producer (kinda like a publisher/dev liaison in this situation) to work with EPIC on future titles in the Gears franchise. Can't find the posting anymore since they take them offline once they find someone for the job, but there ya go.

If they were going to shut down their game development ambitions they wouldn't have bought PCF. Nor would they have been interested in 38 Studios. And the best way to sell a game engine is to have a brand new title demonstrating it. Not like EPIC would have trouble finding publishers for any major new graphics showcase title they could make. Very little makes sense in this rumor.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

I suppose things could have changed in the last 2 years, but in 2011 Epic was very clear that they consider themselves game developers and they don't want to make an engine in isolation. Features may be available in the code for developers to use, but Epic doesn't consider it complete until they've used it themselves in a shipping game and they don't like implementing features they don't intend to use themselves.


As to whether focusing on their own games results in a sub-optimal engine for licensees, their point of view seems to be that they don't intend UE to be the complete game engine for everyone. They just want to provide a stable base that licensees can use directly if they want, but preferably, licensees will customize and differentiate it for their needs.

Of course, with more competition in game engines now, perhaps game developers are just going to choose the most complete and broad game engine available. If Epic is actually moving away from game development and focusing on the engine, they probably no longer expect developers to put in the resources to customize the engine.

I think that's the crux of it. If there's any merit to Epic becoming tech only, it'll be a change of focus. And there has been a corporate buyout and a shift in top management since that interview.