Epic Games Buys Out Bulletstorm Developer

[Cognimancer]

Epic Games Buys Out Bulletstorm Developer

People Can Fly has sold its remaining shares, losing three senior employees in the process.

Epic Games acquired a majority share of People Can Fly, developers of Painkiller and Bulletstorm, in August 2007. Now, it has acquired the rest of the studio - the remaining shares of the Warsaw-based developer have been sold. The decision led to the departure of three senior employees from the studio, including People Can Fly founder Adrian Chmielarz. Mark Rein, vice president of Epic Games, assures that the changes will not affect People Can Fly's current project, Gears of War: Judgment.

"We doubled down on People Can Fly," said Rein. "It was something we always hoped to do."

"We had a controlling stake, but the owner still owned a fairly large piece of it," Rein explained at GDC Europe. Those owners turned out to be the developers who parted ways with the company after the deal. "They left, they're gonna do their own thing. They have something cool they're gonna do, and we'll be very supportive of it."

Rein said that the developers parted amiably. Chmielarz seems to hold no hard feelings either, tweeting, "Gears fans, you're going to love Judgment. It's in great hands. And don't worry, you'll hear about my plans soon enough."

People Can Fly got started by developing Painkiller (notable for its shurikens and lightning [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/zero-punctuation/57-Painkiller]). Its first project with Epic was the PC port of Gears of War. Afterwards, it assisted development on the Gears of War console games. Most recently, the studio was given the task of developing the upcoming Gears of War: Judgment, due to hit shelves March 19, 2013.

People Can Fly is now Epic's fifth wholly owned subsidiary, joining development studios Chair and Impossible Games, alongside Epic Japan and Epic Korea.

Source: Joystiq [http://www.theverge.com/gaming/2012/8/13/3239153/epic-games-buys-people-can-fly]

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[teebeeohh]

let's just hope the guys who left use the money to start something new. while bulletstorm wasn't bad you could really feel the more conventional shooter in it.

 

[Bazaalmon]

People can Fly doesn't do chest high walls!
I wonder what the head developers are going to do now that they left?

 

[Vkmies]

Yahtzee won't be too happy about this.

 

[juyunseen]

Hmm. Hearing this make me want to a rurally get around to buying painkiller.

So basically we can expect People can Fly to do Epic's budding while the guys who left to on to make the next painkiller-esque sleeper hit?

 

[GenGenners]

A fun developer being bought by the brownest developer around.
Oh well, better fate than most studios these days.

 

[WaysideMaze]

Epics been making gears of war fine for years all by themselves. Why buy out a company known for making crazy, over the top fps games only to get them to make a slow, cover based third person shooter? I just don't understand the logic.

 

[EHKOS]

Epics been making gears of war fine for years all by themselves. Why buy out a company known for making crazy, over the top fps games only to get them to make a slow, cover based third person shooter? I just don't understand the logic.

Good or bad. Good, they want to branch out, try new things, make their games more interesting. Bad, they just don't want competition and silenced the studio to doing paperwork in the basement next to the boiler.

 

[Scrythe]

I say Epic should officially hand over Unreal Tournament to PCF.

I'm sure they can do something much, much better with than franchise than what Epic is currently doing with it.

 

[Micalas]

Yahtzee won't be too happy about this.

I was just coming in to say that. He's going to flip his shit.

 

[Sizzle Montyjing]

My reaction:
UUUUUUGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHH.
Though I'm pretty sure that post is too short, so let me expand upon it!
UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHH.
Yeah. Not happy.

 

[Worgen]

I say Epic should officially hand over Unreal Tournament to PCF.

I'm sure they can do something much, much better with than franchise than what Epic is currently doing with it.

..... Holy shit, that is a great fucken idea, they should totally do that, PCF would totally do that right. No more of that gears of unreal that unreal 3 was.

 

[CardinalPiggles]

I just hope that Epic give them a crap ton of money and tell them to make a game out of it. If they made a Painkiller 2 I'd probably buy it. Bulletstorm 2, hell yeah I would buy that too.

Captcha: Fast and loose - I wish!

 

[Smooth Operator]

I say Epic should officially hand over Unreal Tournament to PCF.

I'm sure they can do something much, much better with than franchise than what Epic is currently doing with it.

Giving it to an off shoot team is actually a really great idea, sadly the PCF name is just that now, the guys who really made Painkiller great are long gone.
Hey I still give them the benefit of the doubt and say they can pull something good together, Bulletstorm was not it, but one can learn a great deal from mistakes.

 

[VoidWanderer]

...

Could've been worse.

They could be brought into slave labour by EA

I mean, sign a deal with the devil

No, wrong... I mean they could be brought under the morbidly obese heel of EA

Eh, close enough

 

[Baron von Blitztank]

Aslong as People Can Fly are allowed to work their magic by making insanely fun FPS games instead of sluggish brown shooters then I don't care who they work for (aslong as it isn't EA). Can't wait to play Bulletstorm 2. The first one is probably one of my favorite shooters of all time!
What's that? They're working on another Gears of War title instead of Bulletstorm 2?