Epic President: "The Money's On Console"

[Andy Chalk]

Epic President: "The Money's On Console"

Farmville [http://www.epicgames.com/].

Epic began life in 1991, releasing several popular DOS-based games before making a serious splash with the 1998 release of Gears of War [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unreal] for the Xbox 360 and everything changed as PC development took a back seat and has now faded out almost entirely. It's a state of affairs the Epic president makes no apologies for.

"If you walked into [Epic's Offices] six years ago, Epic was a PC company. We did one PS2 launch title, and everything else was PC. And now, people are saying 'Why do you hate the PC? You're a console-only company'," he said in an interview with Edge. "Guess what? It's because the money's on console."

Capps said that piracy, which he fingered [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/87370-Epic-President-Dumps-On-Used-Games-Piracy] back in 2008 as responsible for the near-death state of PC gaming, has had an irreversible impact on the state of the industry. "We still do PC, we still love the PC, but we already saw the impact of piracy: It killed a lot of great independent developers and completely changed our business model," he explained. Because of that, the PC as a platform may not be dead and buried but he predicted that core gamers shouldn't expect too much from it in the future.

"Maybe Gears of War [http://www.facebook.com]."

Source: TheSixthAxis [http://www.thesixthaxis.com/2010/05/16/epic-president-the-moneys-on-console]


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[uppitycracker]

I hope PC gaming doesn't look like Gears of Bore. But the future of it certainly won't depend on things like Facebook and Farmville. Games like BC2, Civilization, Starcraft, ect, will easily be the future of it, and it's a shame a company like Epic is going to be such a small part of it.

 

[GrinningManiac]

That's depressing....

Not the PC-abandonment thing, but the fact that the title led me to belive Obama made an epic video-games based announcement

 

[maddog015]

Same story as most every other company out there these days. "We didn't make as much profit on the PC as we should have because of piracy, so we're taking our ball and going home."

And honestly, casual games for the PC are probably the way to go. Pirates don't really bother with those games. Although, Farmville is the biggest time-waster on earth.

 

[solidstatemind]

Apparently, Capps is assuming the role of 'Epic Dickhead' from Mark Rein?

What a bunch of garbage. Look, I understand the appeal of making games for consoles (heterogenous hardware environment), but at the same time, as long as there is an XBox 360, the differential between producing for a console and producing for the PC is going to be so slim that a company neglecting to go the PC route after an XBox release would be financially shooting themselves in the foot.

Admittedly, on PS3 exclusives, the obstacles to porting are much more substantial, but the bottom line is this:

We've ALL heard that 'PC Gaming is dead' multiple times before. And yet it's still around. (Go look at Steam if you don't believe me.) I am, frankly, surprised that the president of a company who cut its chops on the platform would be decrying it now... doesn't seem to be any reason to do it.

Hey! I know! Maybe Epic Games should hire me as president! I know I wouldn't make these "stick your own foot in your mouth, up to your HIP" statements, like the boneheads they've had before!

 

[Irridium]

Maybe if Publishers stopped treating the PC market like complete crap with things like DRM, ripping out things that make PC gaming fun and appealing, and releasing shoddy console ports, things would be different.

 

[Kenjitsuka]

The money's been on the consoles for several years now, and everyone knows that...
Why is this newsworthy?

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

PC gaming will look like Team Fortress 2, Portal, Braid, World of Warcraft, Aion, Star Trek Online, Crysis and many of the other great titles that aren't just shoddy console-redubs.

Epic can take its one-trick pony to the consoles for them to turn it into glue, because whining that Ut3 wasn't picked up after it had one of the worst matchmaking systems ever, dull rehashes of favoured weapons and a storyline stolen directly from Space Marines 101 makes it really seem like sour grapes.

You may have made some great games Epic, but that doesn't entitle you to mouth off. Take a lesson from those that have crashed and burned already from their "press releases".

 

[Covarr]

Dear Epic:

Please take a break from Unreal Tournament and Gears of War. Make a new Jazz Jackrabbit game. And a good one, not like the Game Boy Advance one.

Sincerely, Covarr

P.S. Thanks

 

[Nimbus]

Pfft. The used games market is for consoles, and Piracy is for PCs. Surely they cancel each other out?

I'd bet money that Piracy has fuck all to do with the current state of PC gaming.

 

[Blind Sight]

Well, the fact that most of the PC customer base has been alienated by publishers due to DRM and other wacky anti-piracy measures CLEARLY has nothing to do with the stagnation of the PC industry.

Yes, clearly PC gaming is 'dying' just like it's been 'dying' for the past fifteen years.

 

[SimpleChimp]

That's depressing....

Not the PC-abandonment thing, but the fact that the title led me to belive Obama made an epic video-games based announcement

I thought the same exact thing!

Frankly the "money being on console" thing isn't a surprise. I mean pc gaming doesnt get the same hype that the consoles get. The console wars and competition is what helped push it to its level were as the PC gaming has no competition on its platform. I mean their is no Mac gaming to compete against.

 

[Hoplon]

Pfft. The used games market is for consoles, and Piracy is for PCs. Surely they cancel each other out?

I'd bet money that Piracy has fuck all to do with the current state of PC gaming.

Only an idiot would take that bet. The vast majority of Piracy is people that can't afford every new game getting it for free, if it wasn't free, they wouldn't bother.

Same deal with movies, music and the like.

It not like millions of people pirate console games is it... oh wait...

And given the biggest money maker of all time (WoW) is a PC Game, i think he might be wrong.

 

[Lemon Of Life]

Whatever, if Epic want to do that, I don't care. As long as Blizzard and Valve stick around, I'm happy.

 

[dryg]

Seriously?! Failbook is pc gaming now?! And about piracy, I have found alot of games that I have later bought through it, and I would buy alot more if I had a creditcard

 

[GiantRedButton]

To be honrest the Pc doesn't really need any more grey shooters, the market is full of them.
I'm pretty sure gow wouldn't sell even if there was no piracy.
The first gears of war didn't even interest the torrent sites all that much, so the probklem is rather that the audience is on the 360, since pc gamers didn't even want the game for free.
Simple laid back shooters are pretty much the thing on 360 (they didn't develope for the ps3 either), while pc gamers wan't more complex shooters with more buttons than a 360 controller has, and already have plenty of them.

 

[Jared]

Well, I do see the point where the money is...consoles are getting bigger and stronger. And more people play consoles so there is the money!