The Power Review

“What Makes Us Epic?” Keynote Summary and Q&A

Dr. Michael Capps, President of Epic Games was the first keynote speaker at the inaugural Triangle Game Convention is downtown Raleigh, North Carolina.

Epic games has come a far way since they started as a company in the basement of their house shipping games out in ziplock plastic bags.  First and foremost they are a game engine company.  Unreal Tournament 3’s engine is one of the most popular ones out on the market right now, and is used to design everything from Kid’s TV Shows to MMORPGs.   Because of their success, the Research Triangle has become the capital of gaming engines for the entire country.

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Epic is a gaming company, but it really is how they treat their employees that sets them apart.  The most important thing is to treat all of their employees as if they are volunteers.  Because there are hundreds of other companies who would love to have their expertise with the Unreal Engine, so everyone must be highly valued on the staff.

The best way to accomplish goals as a company is to have shared responsibility and shared success.  If there is a team project rather than an individual one, everyone is accountable and has a vested interest to see that it succeeds rather than fails.  Since we have all of these brilliant people working for us, we have to keep them challenged constantly.  If you have brilliant people working towards nearly impossible goals, the end result will almost always be positive.  As much we like to have success with our teams, we always tell them “if you never fail, they you aren’t pushing yourself hard enough.”

Gears of War is particularly interesting, because it started from a simple concept of “vehicles fighting in space”.  After over 30 game of the year awards, some of which were even for marketing of the game, you would have to consider it quite successful.  But in order to make a sequel to this game would have to be a marathon event for the staff.  The game was supposed to be twice as big, twice as hardcore, twice as polished, and over twice the budget.  Unfortunately the metacritic score didn’t reflect all of the work that was put into it, however, the sales did.  And in the end since Epic is a game company, we want to makes the gamers happy.

In the end,  “What makes us epic?”  Simply learning from the lessons handed down from past “generations” of games.  The goal is to keep all of the employees happy and to reward productivity, but it’s important to not forget to have fun, because “we’re a game company!”

Post Session Q&A

o     What are your feelings about the kinds of marketing services that are available through Playstation Home?

-       Well obviously we have a lot of ties with Microsoft, but Home has always interested us.  Since it has been “developing” for so long, it will be interesting to see how companies will actually utilize it.  I’ve heard good things about the space that EA has created, and although there’s nothing like that planned right now, it’s something that we’ll have to look into.

o     When will we be able to fight a Brumak on foot in the Gears of War universe?

-       Actually that was already something that we did in the first Gears of War, although it was only something that was added to the PC edition.  There are a lot of exciting things in store for the series, I wouldn’t count anything out.

Keep checking back for more updates from the Triangle Game Conference!