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It wasn't too terribly long ago that Epic president Mike Capps pretty much told PC gamers to take a hike – or at least trek to the back of the line, behind everyone else. Happily, however, a bit over a year later, he's singing an entirely different tune. PC, he says, is done playing second fiddle.
"The PC has for too long been a port-to platform," he said during a GDC Europe presentation, also mentioning that Epic's "hard at work building on Unreal Engine 4."
Next up, he announced that Epic's currently cracking the development whip on five new games – none of which are the upcoming Gears of War 3. His company's not taking a quantity over quality approach, though. See, Epic's watched many other triple-A developers blindly follow one another right off a bridge. The Unreal creator, however, doesn't plan on being next in line.
"At Epic we didn't multiply the studio size by five when we started working on these multiple projects, so you can make some assumptions about the size of those projects," Capps explained. "Everyone knows the middle class is disappearing from the console business. Gears of War, I hope will do really well, but a pretty good game doesn't make its money back any more. A game like Homefront sells a couple of million copies and they close the studio, right?”
"That's not enough any more. That's pretty depressing. You don't want to see what happens to an industry where it's Call of Duty, Halo and Gears and no-one else has enough money to make any games any more. That's not a fun industry. I can't bet my entire company every time I make a game, that's a really dangerous business,” he concluded.
If you're afraid that we're just one blasphemous press release away from Unrealville or Angry Bairds, though, you need not fret; Capps added that triple-A is in Epic's DNA. Thing is, Epic tested the waters on a different scale of triple-A with XBLA hit Shadow Complex and iOS posterchild Infinity Blade. The end result? Cash. A lot of it.
Now then, fingers crossed that a penny or two finds its way into the probably nanomachine-enhanced cup of that gorgeous “Samaritan” tech demo from earlier this year. A third-person cyberpunk robot puncher? It's OK, everyone. Call off the search. Gaming just found its Citizen Kane.
Comments are closed on this article
Ale
August 18, 2011 at 11:35pm
They are only caring about the PC as platarform cus console's hardware is old as shit, they need the PC to show up their new good looking UE 4.0, and will release maybe a couple of PC games but when next gen consoles come they will abandon the PC ship as the rats they are.
D00dlavy
August 18, 2011 at 8:35am
I bought Bulletstorm on PC. Didn't like the GFW part, but it was a blast. More attention for the PC is always a good thing.
jtrpop
August 18, 2011 at 8:25am
Funny considering Gears of War 1 was a port to the PC, and a bad one at that with "Games for Windows" which often broke functionality, and no Gears 2 or 3 in site for PC, only console. And I've been a fan of Epic since their shareware DOS game days.
dethduck
August 17, 2011 at 8:41pm
Screw them!
They abandoned PCs for consoles and iOS a while ago, being half the reason for the very state of PC gaming they use as an excuse for doing so. Why would we want them back? They lost my money a while ago and they're not about to get it now.
yammerpickle2
August 17, 2011 at 6:39pm
I too loved Unreal Tournament, and Unreal Tournament 2004. Unreal 3 just didn't do it for me. Bulky armor that looked like it was made out of pig iron in my backyard, the same dark and dirty palette used on too many maps, all that technology for a game that to me was not significantly more visually appealing. And yeah I had the hardware to max out settings. They became a console house, and now that their games have to compete in the clutter of console junk they want to come back to the PC. Talk is cheap. Microsoft talks about PC gaming, but I don’t see squat from them. Let’s see Epic back it up with a title that looks like the demo and plays smooth as silk on the three overclocked GTX580’s I have waiting.
DasHellMutt
August 17, 2011 at 2:45pm
I really hope Epic (or anyone else, the more the merrier) can bring life back to PC gaming.
I also want EA to fuck off and die. I hope their shenanigans with Steam come back to bite them in the form of BF3 being a complete failure on PC. EA has always hated gamers and they're proving it.
Epic, on the other hand, has always wanted to be where the players are and making great games. Unfortunately, for too long the money train has led to console. But I think Epic and others are starting to see that even if the revenue is nice, innovation has been stifled by the long life cycle of consoles.
Ghok
August 17, 2011 at 11:24am
Yeah, Epic has recently been pretty annoyed at how far behind the consoles are, and I don't know if this means as much as it would if the next generation of consoles were right around the corner.
I used to use Epic as an example of a good developer. They made good games. I loved Unreal Tournament, and Unreal Tournament 2004. They constantly gave out free updates. You didn't even need to have the disc in the drive when playing, only when patching and updating, which I thought was great. I was really disapointed when they
I also don't really see Epic as a group that makes very innovative games. They are very good at refining a genre and making it better (never used to be into deathmatch shooters until UT)... but with so many shooters out there, it's easy to get lost. As much as I liked UT, I played the most recent one for only a few minutes before I got bored. I'd seen it way too much before.
And they've pissed off a lot of their fanbase...
If they make a good game I'm interested in, I'll buy it, but I'm going to remain skeptical.
bingojubes
August 17, 2011 at 10:49am
Using piracy to downplay PC gaming , then trying to tease players back to your "cause" to get some more money? that's pretty lame. Make a game where the characters and feel to the game are totally different from their other titles. I never played Gears of War, because it looked too much like Unreal Tournament - with a plausible plot and character development. Make a game with brighter, more varied textures, and not entirely grainy and dark. As "manly" as Unreal Tournament and Gears have been, i think they have run their course.
i won't be participating in what EPIC has to offer this round either, because its's all business, not connecting to a fanbase with worthwhile experiences.
Tarkooka
August 17, 2011 at 8:27am
yeah death to console (i have a ps3 and my friends tell me that my psn says that i havent logged on in 5 months)
about to build my very own rig
not the first i build but this one will be mine
and this piece of news has put a smile on my face
unreal engine 4 should push our systems to the limit with visual quailty like cryengine 2 (notice how i didnt say 3 )
and on a side note im still not happy that BF3 isnt coming to steam
i just read through this comment and noticed it was very off topic :P
I Jedi
August 17, 2011 at 8:27am
Unfortunately, this all falls on deaf ears for me. Until I see a true commitment from Epic to release a AAA title, I won't hold my breath. We shouldn't be so willing to open our arms when past companies... Microsoft... have cried the same words and given little result.
ChatterboxChuck
August 17, 2011 at 8:10am
It's aout time they remember it was PCs who put games like COD, BF and others on the map. They shoudl learn from companies like Blizzard who show people the potential and superiority of Pcs over consoles.
LatiosXT
August 17, 2011 at 8:09am
Well, I'm glad he turned the other cheek, because I was fairly ticked off when Epci said "FU PCs".
But I dunno, part of me thinks he's only saying this because he wants to progress forward and consoles haven't done much. But once PS4 or the next Xbox comes out, he'd be right back on "Suck it, PC gamers"
