Mike Capps Resigns From Epic Games

[Encaen]

Mike Capps Resigns From Epic Games

[tweet t=https://twitter.com/epicactual/status/275940924645834752 align="right"]

After some foreshadowing on Twitter, Capps confirmed that he's leaving the Presidency of Epic behind.

Mike Capps, President of Epic Games, has officially tendered his resignation. Take a moment to let that sink in. Capps, who celebrated 10 years with Epic [http://epicgames.com/community/2012/08/mike-capps-celebrates-10-years-at-epic-games/] earlier this year, tweeted just this morning teasing the announcement.

In his announcement [http://epicgames.com/community/2012/12/mike-capps-retiring-to-the-epic-board/], Capps says, "After 10 crazy and wonderful years, I'm handing off my current presidential duties at Epic, and transitioning into an advisory role as well as remaining on the Epic board of directors." So, at the very least, he'll still have his fingers in the pie in some capacity, though obviously to a much lesser extent than before. With some emotion attached to it, he also says, "After dedicating a decade of my life to Epic, and with so many close friends here, it's impossible to just walk away." But then, with "a baby boy on the way," Capps is looking to "be a stay at home dad for a while."

Beyond this sentiment, Capps also states in his announcement, "I might do some teaching, spend more time on creative writing, and maybe get more active with a few charities." With a baby on the way, sitting on the board of the ESA, AIAS, and now Epic, as well as picking up teaching, creative writing, and charity work, Capps probably spends more hours working when he's unemployed than most of us would working two jobs.

Epic issued the following statement regarding Capps' departure from the studio.

Mike Capps is retiring from his role as president of Epic Games to take on the ultimate boss battle of fatherhood and spend more time with his family. He will continue to serve on Epic's board of directors and advise on the development of our games. We thank Mike for the 10 years he's spent leading our studio, implementing practices that enable us to create amazing games and technology, and making Epic one of the best places to work.

As yet, there is no word on who will be taking over as President at Epic Games.



Permalink

 

[gigastar]

So with the 2 biggest creative influences at Epic gone, maybe they can concieve a game thats not about overly machismo power armored space marines and chest high walls and the game worlds desire to give birth to more chest high walls.

 

[The Great JT]

There must always be an Unreal King.

 

[Quazimofo]

Don't want to have too much on your plate now do you?

Sarcasm? since when do you do sarcasm? I always thought you were a Pungi.

But on a more serious note, this is certainly an interesting year for some major developers isn't it?

Blezinski and Capps resign from epic, the bioware co-founders resign from bioware, as well as their lead writer.

Who else is going to leave a well known and loved game studio?

 

[-Dragmire-]

Huh... big dev names are dropping like flies this year... in a retirement sort of way.

 

[OldNewNewOld]

Good. Maybe Epic won't be a cancer after someone else steps in. Tho I doubt it.

 

[Terminate421]

Why is it when epic has someone leave unnecessary hate is fired off? This man wants to be a human being as a father and you guys have to act completely immature. Your not funny nor is there "sarcasm"

 

[CommanderL]

Its obvious all the big name devolpers are leaving to join some sort of game making super team

 

[mindlesspuppet]

Good. Maybe Epic won't be a cancer after someone else steps in. Tho I doubt it.

God, yeah, Epic has been such a cancer. What with, developing the single most popular, powerful, and easy to develop for game engine which the industry has pretty much relied on for a bit over a decade now. Also all that nonsense about giving creative tools to the public that Epic backed so hard, was just silly, I mean nothing at all good ever came from mods and it certainly didn't encourage other game developers to follow suit...

Sarcasm aside, Epic has had a ton of influence over the industry and the gaming community itself for a damn long time, and both have only became better for it. Regardless of what anyone thinks of Epic's games -- which tend to be little more than tech demos for the Unreal Engine -- they are definitely one of the few forces of good in the industry. Moreover, aside from Valve, not many developers enjoy the freedom that Epic can thanks to the massive amount of loot they make licensing the Unreal Engine to major developers -- an engine which may be used freely by indie developers mind you.

 

[Evil Smurf]

Good on him, I hope he can be a fantastic father.

 

[Legion]

So with the 2 biggest creative influences at Epic gone, maybe they can concieve a game thats not about overly machismo power armored space marines and chest high walls and the game worlds desire to give birth to more chest high walls.

Gears of War doesn't have any power armour, nor are they in space (or capable of doing so).

I can't really argue about the chest high walls part. Especially considering the second one.

In all seriousness though, it might have something to do with the fact that Epic is partially responsible for many of the "problems" with modern games (ie: limited color palette and an overreliance on machismo).

That argument doesn't make any sense. Halo doesn't have either of those, is also published by Microsoft and has sold significantly more than Gears of War has. Not to mention that most games with such colour schemes are "gritty war shooters", and they have always been like that, long before Gears of War ever came out.

 

[Erttheking]

I can't say I'm surprised by all the snarky comments, because as we all know (Epic/EA/Ubisoft/Activision/another company that you don't like) is what's wrong with the game industry.

Seriously though, can people really tell me what's so freaking bad about Epic?