Epic Shifting Focus Back to PC!?!?

[Cronq]

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/Gamescom-Mike-Capps-PC-Gaming-Gears-of-War-Unreal-Tournament,13235.html

Big-budget, blockbuster console games just don't bring home the bacon anymore. Thus, Epic is returning to its former love, the PC platform.

Tuesday during a presentation at Gamescom in Germany, Epic Games president Mike Capps made a statement that should see PC gamers and hardware manufacturers dancing with glee in the streets: the company is refocusing its attention back to the PC. The news is a bit surprising given that, just a few months ago, it was suggested that the console sector is where the real money resides.

But that industry viewpoint has rapidly changed over the course of the spring and summer quarters, and Capps brings this up during the presentation. "Everyone knows the middle class is disappearing from the console business," he admitted to the audience. "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 just not enough anymore, he admits, and it'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," he added. "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."

With the console era seemingly coming to a close, where does that leave Epic? Returning to its PC-based roots. "It's nice to target the PC as a primary platform again," teased Capps, "not just for ports."

This time around, the studio may not be focusing on games with a multi-million dollar budget. There's indication that Epic may be setting its sights on smaller titles that would appear on Steam, the PlayStation Network and Xbox Live Arcade. He said that developers and publishers need to create smaller-sized games to counter-balance the larger, costlier blockbuster titles. Was that a hint to the size of Epic's current projects?

Right now the Raleigh, N.C.-based studio is working on five, unnamed titles not related to the Gears of War series. "At Epic, we didn't multiply the studio size by five when we started working on these multiple projects," answered Capps when asked if the projects would be just as large as what went into the Gears of War titles. "So you can make some assumptions about the size of those projects."

Perhaps Epic should work on an Unreal Tournament title built for Facebook and Google+. Like many other multiplayer FPS games on the former social network, gamers can frag for free with options to purchase upgrades immediately or slowly collect virtual currency for purchasing needed upgrades.

Actually Epic, just crank out Unreal 3 for us. It's long overdue.

Is he just tossing a bone, or is he serious?

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

Thanks Epic, but the PC market doesn't really want you. Go back to pandering to 13 year olds with bulletstorm. They're the only ones who still think you're clever.

 

[omicron1]

And we will not forget it, nor fail to reward that which is given. Fealty with love, quality with money... betrayal with scorn.

You have betrayed us, Epic. The PC Master Race are not quick to forget or forgive. Return to us, and we will forgive you... once the bad taste of 360 exclusives and quick-and-dirty ports are out of our mouths. Betray us once more for the allure of Microsoft's money, and you will be reviled for years to come.

 

[RhombusHatesYou]

Is he just tossing a bone, or is he serious?

Honestly, who gives a fuck? Epic, as a games developer, are completely irrelevent to PC gaming these days and, unless they pull out some previously unknown talent from their collective arses, a few low budget titles isn't going to change that.

 

[RhombusHatesYou]

You have betrayed us, Epic. The PC Master Race are not quick to forget or forgive.

My forgiveness comes at the price of Bleszinski and Rein being burned alive and set symbol out front of their HQ.

 

[Souplex]

This is a sad day for gaming.
*Single native-American tear*

 

[synobal]

Ya I don't really care, Epic called me a thief after I bought all their unreal games. How ever since I didn't buy into the trash that was Gears of War I must be an evil pirate. I won't be buying any of their future games.

 

[Phoenix Arrow]

Want to talking to a PC gamer who isn't an elitist? Hey there.
Epic stung the PC gaming community quite badly for no apparent reason, this is true. But without Epic, PC gaming would be a whisper of what it is today. Seriously. You have no idea how important the Unreal Engine has been to PC gaming.

I'm too tired to explain that though, the main point is grow up. In fact, grow up on both sides.

Epic, you do not need to say shit like this to make people like you and you didn't need to say the shit you said before to make console gamers like you. You want to make money? Make games. Good ones. Sell them on whatever platform you want.

Consumers, if a game is good, it has a fair price and is out on the system you prefer. Buy it and stfu. What's more important? Crying about something a big, nasty company said to an arbitrary "group" you've decided you're a member of or supporting the development of good video games? Which is going to benefit you in the long run?

 

[omicron1]

And we will not forget it, nor fail to reward that which is given. Fealty with love, quality with money... betrayal with scorn.

You have betrayed us, Epic. The PC Master Race are not quick to forget or forgive. Return to us, and we will forgive you... once the bad taste of 360 exclusives and quick-and-dirty ports are out of our mouths. Betray us once more for the allure of Microsoft's money, and you will be reviled for years to come.

Arrogant, cheap AND petty. Why, how could any designer not fall head over heels in love with PC gamers? /sarc

Ok, I think it may be important to note here that I was mostly "speaking for the group." I personally have never played a game by Epic, nor have I much interest in doing so. However, as a member and observer of the PC community, I am pretty certain that the general response will be exactly what I just laid out there. Heck, my direct reference to the "PC master race" should've given away that I wasn't entirely po-faced...

 

[RA92]

Epic is like an ex-girlfriend. I loved her more than id, but then she cheated on me with the Three Hundred and Sixtieth Box of X.

 

[barash]

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

Fuck Epic, and fuck Mike Capps.

 

[octafish]

So Epic is looking at successful indie and small budget games and seeing a high profit margin? Low outlay but high sales equals profit? Well you can try and join that market but the successful low budget games tend to be innovative and clever, I'm not sure Epic have that sort of pedigree.

 

[80Maxwell08]

Wow this thread

Someone actually says they're focusing on PC gaming, something that the more vocal "PC Gamers" ***** about all the time and what happens; the developer isn't good enough. Well sorry that your heads couldn't leave your asses long enough to see that its this fucking attitude that makes people not want to develop.

Fuck off.

No offence to you but they are like this because they think he's talking out of his ass. I heard about Epic's previous "betrayals" to their PC fans and I'v heard numerous people from Epic talk about consoles making more money like the person right above your post. Not to mention saying Gears of War 3 won't make money is probably the stupidest thing I've heard someone say in a while. People can lie and people can not know what they are talking about. In my opinion I didn't experience anything myself and I despise the Gears series. However that Unreal Engine 3 demo from a while back. I at least want to see something using that power to its fullest.

 

[Vault101]

wait...so now consoles are "dying"?...I just got one! gaaahhhhh

EDIT: thease people are most likley full of crap anyway it seems....(forceing people to play online is good!!!!!!!!!)

 

[ImprovizoR]

I'll believe it when I see Gears of War 2 and 3 on my PC. And even if they are serious it won't last long. As soon as the new generation of consoles comes out, Epic will forget about PC gaming.

 

[Lordmarkus]

Wow this thread

Someone actually says they're focusing on PC gaming, something that the more vocal "PC Gamers" ***** about all the time and what happens; the developer isn't good enough. Well sorry that your heads couldn't leave your asses long enough to see that its this fucking attitude that makes people not want to develop.

Fuck off.

If you've heard the talk from the Epic guys concerning the PC over the last years then we "deserve" to be cautious. Painkiller was amazing. Unreal Torunament needs no introduction. So Bulletstorm should have been a great game. Then I got hyped when Mike Capps or whatever said that the PC version would a super-duper PC-game aswell as a great consolegame.

Then in January we get a tweet from CliffyB which said: "Bulletstorm demo out now on PSN and Live. Pc Gamers are grumpy". Then a month overdue, even after the game has launched we finally get Bulletstorm demo for PC, and it turns out to be the worst fucking porting disaster I have ever played. Final verdict. Good console game. Incredibly lousy PC game.

So immidiate stance for these news is: Fuck you Cliffy, fuck you Rein and fuck you Epic. You got a lot to prove if you want me to believe that you still got some late 90's magic left in you. Kudos for supporting modders for all these years though, the UDK is great!

 

[Nalgas D. Lemur]

But without Epic, PC gaming would be a whisper of what it is today. Seriously. You have no idea how important the Unreal Engine has been to PC gaming.

That's just it, though. It was hugely important for quite some time, and some great stuff came out of it, but since their shift to being mostly console-focused, the more recent incarnations of the Unreal Engine have been getting in the way of PC gaming almost as much as the earlier ones advanced it. Because it's designed so much around the consoles' strengths/limitations, that results in things like no AA on the PC (seriously, in 2011?), and dynamic loading/streaming of textures in a way that's optimized for the very low amounts of RAM that consoles have. I should not have texture pop-in every time I enter and exit a room in a UE game on a PC because it's reloading the textures from disk when I have 12GB of RAM and can fit the entire game in memory. And because everyone and their monkey licenses the engine for their games because it's probably the most well supported one there is for doing cross platform stuff, things like that affect dozens of games.

Despite all the great things they did before, it's been rather frustrating having to put up with them in the past several years. Not because I care about their games (I can just ignore those if I don't like them), but because the things they do end up affecting me no matter what thanks to how widely used their engine is. On the plus side, almost any UE game is pretty much guaranteed to run well on high settings on even a two year old mid-range PC thanks to the lack of AA and modern PC-specific features, so at least that's something. Heh.

 

[Saulkar]

Personally until I see a DirectX 11 PC exclusive with full PHYSX implementation and a focus on what made Epic Games, game's so amazing without the fear to inovate and modernize (minus a 2 weapon limit and reloading health),I call bullshit on his words.

 

[Hiphophippo]

It is amazing to me how up in arms people get over their chosen platform. I'm a PC gamer but I just like good games all around which is why I've got consoles as well. So what Epic left PC for awhile? Who fucking cares? There are tons of really great games out there. Instead of complaining about one single developer try playing good games instead.

This loyalty thing I'll never get. I'm not loyal to developers, I'm loyal to the medium. Some developers are better than others at tickling my particular game fetish but I wouldn't be furious if they stopped...I'd just go play another great game.

 

[Rawne1980]

I'm nt going to slander Epic.

They left us to make money on consoles thats fair enough. They now come back to us and thats fair enough aswell.

However.

Unreal Tournament has been my favourite shooter for 12 years and nothing released now or coming up has come close to grabbing my attention like UT did.

So, for that alone Epic, I will not sit here and ***** about you.