An Epic Rein

Epic Games' VP talks Unreal Engine, Unreal Tournament III, Gears of War and more.
4/23/2008 8:27 PM | 0 Comments | Page 5 of 5

Crispy Gamer: Wait, you guys make PC games? [laughs]

Rein: Well, you know in the last two years we've shipped two console games and two PC games, and I'd say half our business is PC. If you look at all the licensing stuff we've done, especially all the stuff from Korea, and [Realtime Worlds CEO] Dave Jones's APB stuff, PC is obviously a big part of our business.

Crispy Gamer: PC gaming is dead, right? It's all going to be consoles, right?

Rein: No, Cliff said it was in disarray. It is in disarray! It is in disarray because nobody owns the PC. You can say Microsoft. No, they just make the OS. It's not a console. So, of course, there's all these companies with competing goals and ideas of what it can do and what it can't do. The retailers -- Best Buy does a great job -- the other retailers don't give it much space. Yeah, so duh! It's in disarray. That doesn't mean it's going to die.

Crispy Gamer: How'd the relationship with Valve come about and being on Steam? It's funny, you have Valve, you have id, and you guys -- the three major first person shooter PC developers -- and now you guys are all on Steam.

Rein: The funny thing is, I don't know why people think there's this arch rivalry between companies. Seriously!

Crispy Gamer: Back in the day, though...

Rein: That's all created by the fans, we play their games. You don't think I play Half-Life 2? Or Portal? I loved Portal. And with id, you don't think we played Doom 3? You don't not see "Star Trek" because you're a "Star Wars" guy. If you're a "Star Wars" guy you're also a "Star Trek" guy. If you're a shooter fan, you're a shooter fan.

Crispy Gamer: It was all brought to light when Unreal was first shown: It was versus Quake. It was the big battle!

Rein: I think the media likes to have a good guy and a bad guy. Or adversaries, whatever sells, I don't care. You know, we did well, they did well. Steam is a great place to sell PC games. I think it is becoming the place to sell PC games, so if you're not there, you've limited your marketplace. The numbers in a very short time have been amazing on Steam. We were shocked, we should have done it sooner. We were dumb. [laughs] In the future, we'll probably use more of their stuff. We'll probably use some of the Steamworks stuff. They're doing a great job. It's really well done.

Crispy Gamer: What's the one thing you're most excited about for Gears of War 2?

Rein: Thanks for the interview. [laughs]