Software:Gears of War 2

Short description: 2008 video game

Gears of War 2
Developer(s)	Epic Games
Publisher(s)	Microsoft Game Studios
Producer(s)	Rod Fergusson
Designer(s)	Cliff Bleszinski
Programmer(s)	Ray Davis
Artist(s)	Chris Perna
Writer(s)	Joshua Ortega
Composer(s)	Steve Jablonsky
Series	Gears of War
Engine	Unreal Engine 3
Platform(s)	Xbox 360
Release	November 7, 2008
Genre(s)	Third-person shooter
Mode(s)	Single-player, multiplayer

Gears of War 2 is a 2008 third-person shooter video game developed by Epic Games and published by Microsoft Game Studios for the Xbox 360. It is the second installment of the Gears of War series, with lead design by Cliff Bleszinski. The game was released in North America, Europe and Australia on November 7, 2008, and was released in Japan on July 30, 2009. The game expands technically on the previous game by using a modified Unreal Engine 3. The development team brought in comic book writer Joshua Ortega to help write the plot for the game.

In Gears of War 2, the COG continues its fight against the Locust, who are attempting to sink all of the cities on the planet Sera. Sergeant Marcus Fenix leads Delta Squad into the depths of the planet to try to stop the Locust during the assault upon Locust territory. The player controls Fenix in the main mission campaign, with the ability to play cooperatively with a second player controlling Fenix's best friend and fellow Squad member Dominic "Dom" Santiago. The game includes several existing and new multiplayer modes including five-on-five battles between human and Locust forces, and a "Horde" mode that challenges up to five players against waves of Locust forces with ever-increasing strength. New weapons and gameplay mechanics such as "chainsaw duels" and the ability to use downed foes as "meatshields" were added to the game.

On its release weekend, Gears of War 2 sold over two million copies, and within two months of release, had sold four million copies. It was the seventh best selling video game of 2009 and received several accolades. The game received similar praise as its predecessor, with the new gameplay and multiplayer modes seen as outstanding additions. Gears of War 2, along with its predecessor, are considered to be amongst the best games ever made. It was followed by Gears of War 3 in 2011.

Gameplay

Gears of War 2 is a third-person shooter with an emphasis on the tactical use of cover, and retains much of the same gameplay from the first game. The player, playing as either Marcus or Dominic in the campaign mode, or as any of the human or Locust characters in multiplayer mode, can only carry a pistol, one type of grenade, and two other weapons at any time, though they may swap these for weapons found in strategic locations or left by downed foes or fallen allies. Each weapon can be used for normal fire as well as for melee attacks; the game's signature Lancer Assault Rifle can be used to instantly kill foes in melee with its mounted chainsaw bayonet. The game introduces the ability to engage in chainsaw duels should the player attempt to chainsaw an opponent also using the Lancer; the player is presented with a controller button to press rapidly to try to win the duel and avoid death. Gears of War 2 rebalances the power of the existing weapons while introducing five new ones: a flamethrower, a chain gun, a mortar cannon, a "Gorgon" Pistol, and the Ink Grenade. The chain gun and the mortar are heavy weapons, forcing the player to move at walking speed while carrying it in both hands. The Gorgon Pistol is an SMG-like machine pistol that fires four four-shot bursts per magazine. The Ink Grenade doesn't damage with its detonation, but instead temporarily poisons the area it was thrown, making it very useful for driving enemies out of cover. Grenades can be planted on walls or floors as proximity traps that go off when an enemy nears, but only fragmentation grenades have the ability to kill foes when they go off.

The player's health is represented by a red "Crimson Omen" that fades onto the screen the more damage the player takes; staying out of the line of fire allows the player to recover their health. Depending on the game mode or difficulty, if the player takes too much damage, they enter a downed state where they can crawl around the map to get out of battle and seek help. During this time, a teammate can revive him, an enemy may brutally execute the downed player, or the player may bleed out if too much time has passed. The player can also grab a downed character and use them as a meatshield, allowing the body to absorb damage but forcing the player to use a one-handed pistol. Explosive weapons will simply destroy the character they strike. Like its predecessor, Gears of War 2 features an optional mature content filter, which, when active, makes blood appear as sparks and removes harsh language from the dialogue. Furthermore, progress towards most of the Xbox achievements for the game can be earned in either campaign or multiplayer modes.

Campaign mode

The campaign mode in Gears of War 2 allows for a single player or two players playing cooperatively as Marcus or Dom. A new "Normal" difficulty was added between the game's "Casual" and "Hardcore" difficulties. There is also an 'Insane' difficulty that is unlocked after the player completes the game at least once. Players in co-op mode can select different difficulties, and a "communal combat system" will adjust the game's artificial intelligence to give both players a fair challenge. The co-op campaign can be played in a drop in/drop out manner, with the second player able to join the first player's game in progress. As well as collecting some COG tags as in the first game, players can search other story-based items such as personal letters and medical records, with discovered items being added to a war journal.

The campaign features a deeper story with new characters, new weapons, and new enemies according to John DiMaggio, the voice actor for Marcus Fenix. New vehicles have been added to the game, such as the Centaur Tank, which lead designer Cliff Bleszinski describes as a "tank with monster truck wheels." Players will also ride a Brumak and Reavers in the game. Cut-scenes use the better facial rendering technology of Epic's Unreal engine, and engage in more dramatic angles for the conversation, as well as using a video screen on Jack (the all-purpose robot used by Delta squad) to talk with their commanders face-to-face.

Multiplayer

Gears of War 2 features an upgraded multiplayer mode that allows up to ten users to simultaneously play in teams of five-on-five. Gears of War 2 includes most of the multiplayer modes, including Execution, Warzone, Annex and King of the Hill, and adds in three new modes. Guardian is a modified version of Assassination from the original Gears of War, but allows players to continue fighting after the leader has been killed, but losing the ability to respawn. Wingman splits all ten players into five teams of two, where both members of a team play as the same character. Submission, formerly known as Meat Flag, is a version of capture the flag in which players attempt to "down" an enemy controlled by the game's AI and move its body to their team's base or objective to earn points. The 10 maps shipped with the game originally are Avalanche, Blood Drive, Day One, Hail, Jacinto, Pavilion, River, Ruins, Security and Stasis. A Halo-like matchmaking system has been utilized for the online multiplayer. Players can now engage in multiplayer scenarios with any combination of human players and artificial intelligence controlled by the game, with the ability to set the AI's intelligence level. Horde is a new co-op mode for five players, fighting off waves of attacking Locust together, with each wave becoming more difficult. Horde Mode does not feature bot support as in competitive multiplayer, and can be played alone.

Players can pan around a map as the camera focuses on areas of intense fighting, and the Ghost Cam allows a player to roam freely around a map. The ability to take photographs is also featured, which enables the player to take a photo, which can be uploaded to the Gears of War website and is rated on the quality of action in the shot.

Synopsis

Setting

Gears of War 2 takes place six months after the detonation of the Lightmass Bomb at the end of the first game. Though most of the underground army of the Locust Horde was destroyed, the explosion also caused much of the liquid Imulsion underground to vaporize, causing a fatal disease called Rustlung to spread among the diminished human population. After months of peace, the cities of Tollen and Montevado suddenly and mysteriously disappear underground, leading the Coalition of Ordered Governments (COG) to suspect the resurgence of the Locust. Soon after, the once impenetrable Jacinto, one of the last remaining safe havens for humans, begins to show signs that the same fate awaits it. To stop the fall of Jacinto, the COG responds with a large-scale counter-offensive against the Locust. Senior Producer Rod Fergusson says "In order to save Jacinto, [the COG] have no choice but to take the war to the Locust."

Characters

Returning characters includes the main protagonists of the series Marcus Fenix and Dominic Santiago and others from the first game, including Marcus and Dom's fellow Delta Squad COG soldiers, Augustus 'Cole Train' Cole and Damon Baird. Also returning in supporting roles are radio dispatcher Anya Stroud and senior officer Colonel Hoffman. Lead designer Cliff Bleszinski confirmed that the character Carmine would be returning, but did not reveal how or in what capacity as Carmine was killed in the original Gears of War. It was later revealed that the original Anthony Carmine would not be present in the Gears of War 2 campaign, but rather his brother, Benjamin, would make an appearance. The game also introduces several new characters. They include Chairman Prescott, the noble, yet near-dictatorial military leader of COG; Tai Kaliso, "a spiritual and meditative warrior from a tradition of honor bound fighters;" and Dizzy Wallin, a former Stranded who joined the COG to keep his family safe. Dom's wife Maria also makes an appearance, and Dom's search for her plays an important part in the story.

Plot

As Gears of War 2 begins, the COG army mobilizes forces to deploy into the depths of Sera, known as the "Hollow", to assault the Locust directly. Delta Squad, consisting of Marcus Fenix, Dom Santiago, Benjamin Carmine, Tai Kaliso, Augustus Cole and Damon Baird; fight the Locust alongside thousands of Gears. During the battle, Tai is taken prisoner by Locust general Skorge and is tortured to the point of insanity, resulting in him committing suicide after being freed by Delta. They discover that the Locust are using a giant Riftworm to sink the human cities. The Locust plan to destroy the rock structures in the outskirts of Jacinto, the last major human city, in hopes of sinking it underground. Delta kills the Riftworm from within before it can sink Jacinto, but they lose Carmine in the process.

After returning to the surface, Colonel Hoffman admits the COG failed in locating the Locust stronghold. Chairman Prescott declassifies an intel file that reveals a nearby abandoned COG outpost that has a lead on the location of the Locust capital and their queen. Delta is ordered to investigate. Inside, Delta learns that the outpost is "New Hope", a genetics lab dedicated to studying human children of Imulsion miners suffering from Rustlung, resulting in mutated experiments called "Sires". Delta finds that the scientists relocated to the nearby caverns of Mount Kadar to continue their research. As Delta infiltrates Mount Kadar to infiltrate the Locust stronghold, Dom gets a lead on his missing wife, Maria, located at a nearby prison camp. Dom finds Maria in a vegetative state due to the aggressive and invasive torture techniques of the Locust. Dom euthanizes Maria and continues on the mission.

Delta locates Locust capital, Nexus, and sets off the beacon to initiate the second wave. The COG sees the Locust have been facing an epidemic against the "Lambent", Locust who have been exposed to Imulsion, and have been forcing the Locust out of the Hollow and onto the surface. Locust Queen Myrrah, who appears human, reveals to Marcus that the Locust are trying to sink Jacinto based on a proposal by Adam Fenix, his father, that the surrounding seawater could flood the Hollow and drown the Lambent. After a battle where they succeed in killing Skorge, but failing to kill Myrrah, Marcus decides to destroy both the Locust and Lambent forces by sinking Jacinto themselves before the Locust can evacuate. Jacinto is sunk by the COG and seawater floods into the crater, destroying the remaining Locust forces. After the credits, the voice of Adam Fenix is heard on a radio transmission, revealing he is still alive.

Development

Gears of War designer Cliff Bleszinski has done several interviews to highlight improvements to the game. Heavy Netcode optimization has been done to negate the host advantage problem in the first title and hundreds of tweaks have gone into improving the cover system and movement. To provide a deeper story, the team brought aboard novelist Joshua Ortega as to incorporate more personal drama within the sci-fi setting. Steve Jablonsky provided the music for the game. Epic Games also considered making the game easier after complaints about Gears of War. Senior producer Rod Fergusson admitted that — for the first game — "We overshot on [the Casual] difficulty and a game that was a little harder than we intended."

Game engine

Comparison of the map "Gridlock" in Gears of War and Gears of War 2

At the 2008 Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, California, as a showcase for the functionality of the Unreal Engine 3, Gears of War creators Epic Games showed various improvements to the engine with specific reference to the sequel itself. The video showed several demonstrations of the improvements, the initial being improvements to the in-game lighting through Screen Space Ambient Occlusion, in which dynamic shadows could be generated through the use of a pixel shading technique to render more realistically lit and shaded objects and actors, illustrated through comparison between character and environment models in the original game engine to that of Unreal Engine 3. Also showcased was the ability of the engine to render hordes of actors within the engine, as demonstrated with a large crowd of locust flocking through the "Gridlock" multiplayer map from the original game. Alongside this technology was improvements to "Matinee," an artistic tool used for the rendering and editing 3-dimensional scenes within the game.

Other physics-related features included improvements to the rendering of water in which specular light and physical interactions with were displayed more realistically, improvements to soft body entities demonstrated with a "Meat Cube" and a floating ball possessing properties similar to that of liquid helium. The largest of these physics engine related changes was the introduction of destructible environments due to the implementation of real-time structural analysis tools to generate the damage of the materials and subsequently their deformed shapes based upon resultant forces placed upon them. This was demonstrated with the use of explosive arrows fired from the "Torque Bow" of the original game causing damage to wooden planks, and also revealing rebar present after destroying areas of a stone structure.

Marketing and release

Screenshot from the first Gears of War 2 trailer shown at the 2008 Game Developers Conference, depicting Marcus Fenix executing a Locust with the chainsaw bayonet

On February 20, 2008, coinciding with the game's announcement at the Game Developers Conference, a free set of gamer pictures and a dashboard theme, as well as a teaser trailer titled "Duel," were made available via the Xbox Live Marketplace. The first footage of gameplay from the campaign, highlighting new features of the game, was released online and to the Marketplace on May 9, 2008. After the Microsoft E3 press conference, the "Rendezvous" trailer and the press conference demonstration was available for download as well as a new free set of gamer pictures and a dashboard theme.

A teaser image posted to the Gears of War 2 website on July 8, 2008, suggested that the game was to be released on November 9, 2008, but it was confirmed during the Microsoft E3 2008 press conference that the game would be released on November 7, 2008. On July 14, 2008, the teaser image was removed and the website relaunched and updated for Gears of War 2.

Gears of War 2 was a focal point during Microsoft's E3 2008 presentation on July 15, 2008, which included a "hands-on" demo. A second trailer, entitled "Rendezvous," was made available on July 14, 2008, as a part of E3. The Joseph Kosinski-directed trailer, which features the Trans Am track "Diabolical Cracker" from the album Red Line, takes its title and spoken words from Alan Seeger's World War I poem I Have a Rendezvous with Death. The game's release date was also set, with a worldwide release to occur on November 7, 2008. Microsoft and Epic Games announced on October 10, 2008, that Gears of War 2 had gone gold. It was stated by Cliff Bleszinski that, unlike Gears of War, the previous installment, Gears of War 2 would not feature a PC port.

Limited Edition

A Limited Edition of the game was confirmed on February 20, 2008. On July 14, 2008, more information about the Limited Edition's contents was revealed. The edition features alternative cover art, a SteelBook case with a bonus content DVD, a book entitled Beneath the Surface: An Inside Look at Gears of War 2, which includes concept art and story-related information, a keepsake photo of Dominic and Maria, and an exclusive Xbox Live code to unlock a gold-plated Lancer for online play. As a bonus item promoted by electronics store Best Buy, customers who preordered the Limited Edition also received a bonus Remote Control Centaur Tank replica, just like the new vehicle introduced in the game, free of charge.

Downloadable content and updates

Upon release, every new copy of Gears of War 2 features a code to download the Flashback Map Pack, which includes five enhanced multiplayer maps from the original game. Customers who attended the GameStop "Midnight Madness" game release event received a code to unlock a gold-plated Hammerburst rifle for use in multiplayer and a code for an exclusive Xbox 360 Dashboard theme optimized for the New Xbox Experience.

The first downloadable content released after Gears of War 2 was the Combustible Map Pack, which consists of three new multiplayer maps. This add-on was announced and released on December 15, 2008. The second title update was released on January 21, 2009, featuring several adjustments to gameplay and adding additional Achievements, the patch attempts to correct many of the "glitches" that players have discovered since the game's release.

A third update was applied to Gears of War 2 on March 24, 2009. The update added an experience-based ranking system in which the player is given a numerical value based on their number of experience points, which are gained by shooting or killing enemies in public multiplayer. The update also addressed several issues with matchmaking, including adding bots in place of players who have quit or lost connection to the game.

In early July 2009, Epic Games applied a fourth update to Gears of War 2, which added the ability to gain experience from the multiplayer Horde Mode, as well as applying several more gameplay fixes. On July 28, 2009, the Dark Corners add-on was released. This add-on consisted of seven new multiplayer maps, and an additional campaign chapter that was originally deleted from the game. The deleted scene takes place after Maria's death, where the user can choose to either sneak into the stronghold as Theron Guards or charge in as in the original game, though the level is different from the one that appeared in the final game and features a cameo from a Stranded character from the original Gears.

All Fronts Collection

On May 6, 2009, Microsoft and Epic Games issued a joint press release announcing the Gears of War 2: All Fronts Collection, to be released on July 28, 2009. The All Fronts Collection was to be sold as a retail package, and would have included all add-ons released for Gears of War 2, a poster, and a strategy guide for the game. In response to complaints that the All Fronts Collection had identical pricing to the Dark Corners add-on, but significantly more content, as well as the All Fronts Collection retail package not being made available in certain regions, Epic Games adjusted the release plan; the All Fronts Collection was released digitally via Xbox Live and the Dark Corners add-on was reduced in price.

Stereoscopic 3D support

In June 2010 during the Electronic Entertainment Expo 2010 Mark Rein (vice president of Epic Games) was showcasing a tech demo of Gears of War 2 in stereoscopic 3D running on an Xbox 360 thanks to the TriOviz for Games Technology. "This technology's great because it works on normal HD TVs, as well as the very high end 3DTVs," Rein commented to Computer and Video Games. "We're not planning to re-release this in 3D - unless Microsoft want us to - but I'm sure its technology may be keen to put in the games developed by our partners."

In October 2010 TriOviz for Games Technology has been integrated in Unreal Engine 3, allowing to easily convert in stereoscopic 3D, numerous past and upcoming games developed with this engine.

Reception

Critical reception

Reception
Aggregate scores Aggregator Score GameRankings 93.32% Metacritic 93/100 Review scores Publication Score 1Up.com A CVG 9.3/10 Edge 9/10 Eurogamer 9/10 Game Informer 9/10 GamePro GameRevolution GameSpot 9.0/10 GameSpy GameTrailers 9.5/10 Giant Bomb IGN 9.5/10 OXM (US) 9.5/10 X-Play PC Advisor The Daily Telegraph 9/10

Gears of War 2 received widespread critical acclaim. It currently holds a 93.32% aggregate review score at GameRankings, and a 93/100 from the aggregate review website Metacritic.

While the game has been praised for the addition of a deeper plot than the original Gears of War and being highly polished, reviewers noted that the multiplayer experience did not resemble the previous game especially in its quick pace and enjoyability. IGN noted that while the first four acts of the game were satisfying, in the final act "the last boss is a complete joke and the ending feels just a tad too abrupt," and that there were some bugs and lag in the online multiplayer. Overall, IGN stated that "[Gears of War 2] has its flaws when it comes to the technical side of multiplayer and the last act of the campaign and the voice acting might turn some off. Still, none of that comes close to holding back Gears of War 2 from its destiny: being one of the best games available on the Xbox 360." Also, even though the new plot was praised, critics such as Official Xbox Magazine scrutinized the game's middle acts saying that most of the plot "falls flat."

Both IGN and Eurogamer, among others, positively mentioned the new "Horde Mode" feature, with Eurogamer saying that "Horde is a weighty slab of fun that can turn almost any of them into a time-sink, and the leaderboards are likely to be as compelling a reason to stick with Gears of War 2 as the leveling system has been for Software:Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare." X-Play praised the game for its "polished cover system" and cooperative campaign mode. X-Play also praised the new weapons and characters and its "brilliant" multiplayer experience. Game Informer called the single-player campaign "satisfying" and called the co-op campaign amazing and goes on to call online multiplayer "an outstanding contrast to team deathmatch or capture-the-flag scenarios."

Sales

Gears of War 2 has achieved significant success after its release. In its opening weekend, the game sold over two million units, and set a new record for the number of simultaneous players on Xbox Live, with over 1 million people logging on to play the game. The game went on to sell over three million copies worldwide within the first month of its release, and pushed past four million in sales within the first two months. It was the sixth best-selling game of December 2008 in the United States, selling in excess of 745,000 copies. It was also the tenth top-selling game in the United States in 2008, with over 1.3  million copies sold. It received a "Double Platinum" sales award from the Entertainment and Leisure Software Publishers Association (ELSPA), indicating sales of at least 600,000 copies in the United Kingdom. As of May 7, 2009, Gears of War 2 had sold over 5 million units worldwide, bringing the franchise total to 11 million units sold.

Awards

Gears of War 2 won several awards following its presentation at E3 2008. IGN gave it the awards Overall Best Shooting Game and Overall Best Graphics Technology of E3 2008. Game Critics Awards gave the game Best Action Game of E3 2008. Gears of War 2 also won Best Shooter and Best Xbox 360 Game at the 2008 Spike Video Game Awards.

During the 12th Annual Interactive Achievement Awards, the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences nominated Gears of War 2 for "Console Game of the Year", "Action Game of the Year", and outstanding achievement in "Animation", "Character Performance" (Dominic Santiago and Marcus Fenix), "Game Direction", "Game Design", "Online Gameplay", "Sound Design", and "Visual Engineering".

Sequel

Main article: Software:Gears of War 3

On April 13, 2010, on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, Cliff Bleszinski announced Gears of War 3 and debuted a trailer, titled "Ashes to Ashes." The game is set 18 months after the events of Gears of War 2. It was originally going to be released on April 8, 2011, but was delayed and was finally released on September 20, 2011.

External links

• Official website

Short description: American video game company

Epic Games, Inc.

Headquarters in Cary, North Carolina, 2016
Formerly	Potomac Computer Systems (1991–1992) Epic MegaGames, Inc. (1992–1999)
Type	Private
Industry	Video games
Founded	1991 (1991) in Potomac, Maryland, US
Founder	Tim Sweeney
Headquarters	Cary, North Carolina , US
Area served	Worldwide
Key people	Tim Sweeney (CEO) Kim Libreri (CTO) Mark Rein (VP) Adam Sussman (president) Charlie Wen (CCO)
Products	Unreal Engine Bink Video Epic Games Store Unreal series Gears of War series Fortnite
Owners	Tim Sweeney (51.4%) Tencent (40%) Sony (5.4%) Kirkbi A/S (3.2%)
Number of employees	4,000+ (2023)
Subsidiaries	See § Subsidiaries and divisions
Website	epicgames.com
Footnotes / references

Epic Games, Inc. is an American video game and software developer and publisher based in Cary, North Carolina. The company was founded by Tim Sweeney as Potomac Computer Systems in 1991, originally located in his parents' house in Potomac, Maryland. Following its first commercial video game release, ZZT (1991), the company became Epic MegaGames, Inc. in early 1992 and brought on Mark Rein, who has been its vice president since. After moving the headquarters to Cary in 1999, the studio changed its name to Epic Games.

Epic Games developed Unreal Engine, a commercially available game engine which also powers its internally developed video games like Fortnite and the Unreal, Gears of War, and Infinity Blade series. In 2014, Unreal Engine was named the "most successful videogame engine" by Guinness World Records.

Epic Games owns the game developers Psyonix, Mediatonic, and Harmonix, and operates studios in multiple locations around the world. While Sweeney remains the controlling shareholder, Tencent acquired a 48.4% outstanding stake, equating to 40% of total Epic, in the company in 2012, as part of an agreement aimed at moving Epic towards a games as a service model. Following the release of the popular Fortnite Battle Royale in 2017, the company gained additional investments that enabled it to expand its Unreal Engine offerings, establish esports events around Fortnite, and launch the Epic Games Store. As of April 2022, the company has a US$32 billion equity valuation.

On August 13, 2020, Epic released a version of Fortnite that included a permanent discount on V-bucks across all platforms (except iOS and Android devices) if they purchased directly through Epic, bypassing Apple and Google's storefronts. Both Apple and Google immediately delisted the game for violating the storefronts' terms of service by including their own storefront, which led Epic to file lawsuits against both companies the same day, accusing them of antitrust behavior in how they operate their app stores. While Apple was ultimately victorious in a bench trial in September 2021 and upheld through appeals, Google's actions were found to be monopolistic by a jury trial in December 2023.

History

Potomac Computer Systems (1991–1992)

Potomac Computer Systems was founded by Tim Sweeney in 1991. At the time, Sweeney was studying mechanical engineering and living in a dorm at the University of Maryland. He frequently visited his parents, who lived in nearby Potomac, Maryland, where his personal computer, used for both work and leisure, was situated. Out of this location, Sweeney started Potomac Computer Systems as a computer consulting business but later figured that it would be too much work he would have to put into keeping the business stable, and scrapped the idea.

After finishing his game ZZT, Sweeney opted to re-use the Potomac Computer Systems name to release the game to the public in January 1991. It was only with the unexpected success of ZZT, caused in most part by the easy modifiability of the game using Sweeney's custom ZZT-oop programming language, that made Sweeney consider turning Potomac Computer Systems into a video game company. ZZT was sold through bulletin board systems, while all orders were fulfilled by Sweeney's father, Paul Sweeney. The game sold several thousand copies as of May 2009, and Paul Sweeney still lived at the former Potomac Computer Systems address at the time, fulfilling all orders that eventually came by mail. The final copy of ZZT was shipped by Paul Sweeney in November 2013.

Epic MegaGames (1992–1999)

Epic Games founder and CEO Tim Sweeney

In early 1992, Sweeney found himself and his new-found video game company in a business where larger studios, such as Apogee Software and id Software, were dominant, and he had to find a more serious name for his. As such, Sweeney came up with "Epic MegaGames", a name which incorporated "Epic" and "Mega" to make it sound like it represented a fairly large company (such as Apogee Software), although he was its only employee. Sweeney soon underwent searching for a business partner, and eventually caught up with Mark Rein, who previously quit his job at id Software and moved to Toronto, Ontario. Rein worked remotely from Toronto, and primarily handled sales, marketing and publishing deals; business development that Sweeney found to have significantly contributed to the company's growth. Some time this season, the company soon had 20 employees consisting of programmers, artists, designers and composers. Among them was the 17-year old Cliff Bleszinski, who joined the company after submitting his game Dare to Dream to Sweeney. The following year, they had over 30 employees.

In 1996, Epic MegaGames produced a shareware isometric shooter called Fire Fight, developed by Polish studio Chaos Works. It was published by Electronic Arts. By 1997, Epic MegaGames had 50 people working for them worldwide. In 1998, Epic MegaGames released Unreal, a 3D first-person shooter co-developed with Digital Extremes, which expanded into a series of Unreal games. The company also began to license the core technology, the Unreal Engine, to other game developers.

Epic Games (1999–present)

Unreal and personal computer games (1999–2006)

In February 1999, Epic MegaGames announced that they had moved their headquarters to a new location in Cary, North Carolina, and would henceforth be known as simply Epic Games. Rein explained that "Unreal was first created by developers who were scattered across the world, eventually, the team came together to finish the game and that's when the real magic started. The move to North Carolina centralizes Epic, bringing all of the company's talented developers under one roof." Furthermore, Sweeney stated that the "Mega" part of the name was dropped because they no longer wanted to pretend to be a big company, as was the original intention of the name when it was a one-man team. The follow-up game, Unreal Tournament, shipped to critical acclaim the same year, at which point the studio had 13 employees.

The company launched the Make Something Unreal competition in 2004, aiming to reward video game developers who create mods using the Unreal game engine. Tripwire Interactive won US$80,000 in cash and computer hardware prizes over the course of the contest in the first contest in 2004.

Gears of War and console games (2006–2012)

Around 2006, the personal computer video game market was struggling with copyright infringement in the form of software piracy, and it became difficult to make single-player games, elements that had been part of Epic's business model to that point. The company decided to shift focus into developing console systems, a move which Sweeney called the start of the third major iteration of the company, "Epic 3.0". In 2006, Epic released the Xbox 360 shooter Gears of War, which became a commercial success for the company, grossing about $100 million off a $12 million budget. A year later, the company released Unreal Tournament 3 for PC and acquired a majority share in People Can Fly.

In 2008, Epic Games released Gears of War 2, selling over three million copies within the first month of its release.

Epic Games released on September 1, 2010 Epic Citadel as a tech demo to demonstrate the Unreal Engine 3 running on Apple iOS, within Adobe Flash Player Stage3D and using HTML5 WebGL technologies. It was also released for Android on January 29, 2013. Epic Games worked on an iOS game, Infinity Blade, which was released on December 9, 2010. The third game in the series, Gears of War 3, came out in 2011.

In 2011, Epic's subsidiary Titan Studios was dissolved. At the 2011 Spike Video Game Awards, Epic Games announced their new game Fortnite.

In June 2012, Epic announced that it was opening up a new studio, Epic Baltimore, made up of members of 38 Studios' Big Huge Games. Epic Baltimore was renamed to Impossible Studios in August 2012. However, the studio ended up closing its doors in February 2013.

Epic fully acquired People Can Fly in August 2012, rebranding them as Epic Games Poland in November 2013 as they began work on Fortnite alongside Epic. Epic alongside People Can Fly made one last game in the Gears of War series that served as a prequel to the other games, Gears of War: Judgement, which was released in 2013. At this point, Epic had considered developing a fourth main title for Gears of War, but estimated that its budget would be at least $100 million. Additionally, they had suggested the idea of a multiplayer-only version of Gears of War that featured improved versions of maps based on user feedback, similar to the concept behind Unreal Tournament, but Microsoft rejected this idea. Epic recognized the troubles of being held to the business objectives of a publisher and began to shift the company again.

Games as a service and Tencent shareholding (2012–2018)

File:GitHub OctoTales - Epic Games.webm Coupled with their desire to move away from being beholden to a publisher, Epic Games observed that the video game industry was shifting to a games-as-a-service model (GaaS). Sweeney stated, "There was an increasing realization that the old model wasn't working anymore and that the new model was looking increasingly like the way to go." In an attempt to gain more GaaS experience, they made an agreement with Chinese Tencent, who had several games under their banner (including Riot Games' League of Legends) operating successfully as games as a service. In exchange for Tencent's help, Tencent acquired approximately 48.4% of Epic then issued share capital, equating to 40% of total Epic – inclusive of both stock and employee stock options, for $330 million in June 2012. Tencent Holdings has the right to nominate directors to the board of Epic Games and thus counts as an associate of the Group. However, Sweeney stated that Tencent otherwise has very little control on the creative output of Epic Games. Sweeney considered the partial acquisition by Tencent as the start of "Epic 4.0", the fourth major iteration of the company, allowing the company to be more agile in the video game marketplace.

Around this point, Epic had about 200 employees. A number of high-profile staff left the company months after the Tencent deal was announced for various reasons. Some notable departures included:

• Cliff Bleszinski, then the design director, announced he was leaving Epic Games in October 2012 after 20 years with the company. His official reason was "It's time for a much-needed break". Bleszinski later stated that he had become "jaded" about the gaming industry in the lead-up to Tencent's involvement. After Tencent's investment, Bleszinski attempted to renegotiate his contract but failed to come to terms, making him think about retirement instead. He opted to stop coming to work, spending his time at his beach house, eventually leading Sweeney to come down and have a heart-to-heart discussion with Bleszinski on the new direction Epic was going, and asking him to make a firm decision regarding his commitment to Epic. Bleszinski opted to write his resignation letter the next day. After about two years, Bleszinski started Boss Key Productions in 2014.
• President Mike Capps announced his retirement in December 2012, and cited as reasons the birth of a baby boy he was having with his wife and his plans to be a stay-at-home dad. He subsequently announced quitting his advisory role as well as his affiliation with the company in March 2013.
• Rod Fergusson, who had been a lead developer for the Gears of War series, left Epic in August 2012. Fergusson stated that he had seen the direction that the Tencent acquisition would have taken the company, and was not interested in the free-to-play style of games but instead wanted to continue developing a "AAA, big-narrative, big-story, big-impact game". Fergusson briefly joined Irrational Games, owned by 2K Games, to help complete BioShock Infinite. While there, Fergusson talked with 2K about potentially continuing the Gears of War series, leading to talks between 2K Games, Epic, and Microsoft. As a result, Microsoft acquired the rights to Gears of War on January 27, 2014, eventually assigned those to Microsoft Game Studios; Fergusson moved to Black Tusk Studios, owned by Microsoft Game Studios, to take on lead development for a new Gears title, with the studio being rebranded as The Coalition. The first game since the acquisition, Gears of War 4, was released in October 2016.
• Adrian Chmielarz, the founder of People Can Fly, who joined Epic when his studio was acquired earlier in 2012, decided to leave after Tencent's acquisition, stating that he and other former People Can Fly members did not believe the free-to-play games as a service direction fit their own personal vision or direction they wanted to go. Chmielarz and these others left Epic in late 2012 to form The Astronauts.
• Lee Perry, a lead designer on both Unreal and Gears of War series, felt that Epic has started to grow too large to maintain a role as an eccentric game developer. Coupled with the studio's need for more management to support the games as a service model, Perry felt that their creative freedom would become limited. He and five other senior people left Epic to form a new studio, Bitmonster.

Epic continued its goal to deliver games as a service following these departures. Fortnite was to serve as their testbed for living games, but with the shifts in staff, and its engine from Unreal Engine 3 to 4, its release suffered some setbacks. Epic started additional projects; the free-to-play and community-developed Unreal Tournament, first announced in 2014, and the free-to-play multiplayer online battle arena game Paragon, launched in 2016 for Microsoft Windows and PlayStation 4. Epic also released a remastered version of Shadow Complex for newer consoles and computers in 2015, and their first foray into virtual reality with the release of Robo Recall for the Oculus Rift.

The investment infusion from Tencent allowed Epic Games to relicense the Unreal Engine 4 engine in March 2015 to be free for all users to develop with, with Epic taking 5% royalties on games developed with the engine.

In June 2015, Epic agreed to allow Epic Games Poland's departure from the company and sold its shares in the studio; the studio reverted to their former name, People Can Fly. The Bulletstorm IP was retained by People Can Fly who has since launched a remastered version called Bulletstorm: Full Clip Edition on April 7, 2017, published by Gearbox Software.

Fortnite success (2018–present)

Epic's Fortnite exhibition space at E3 2018

By July 2017, Fortnite was finally in a state for public play. Epic launched the title through a paid early access then, with a full free-to-play release expected in 2018. Following on the popularity of PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds, a battle royale game released earlier in 2017, Epic developed a variant of Fortnite called Fortnite Battle Royale, which was released in September 2017 as a free-to-play title across computer, console, and mobile platforms. Fortnite Battle Royale quickly gained an audience, amassing over 125 million players by May 2018 with estimates of having earned over $1 billion by July 2018 through microtransactions, including its battle pass system. Epic Games, which had been valued at around $825 million at the time of Tencent's acquisition, was estimated to be worth $4.5 billion in July 2018 due to Fortnite Battle Royale, and expected to surpass $8.5 billion by the end of 2018 with projected growth of the game. Player count continued to expand when Epic broke new ground by convincing Sony to change its stance on cross-platform play allowing players on any device to compete with each other in Fortnite Battle Royale. Fortnite has drawn nearly 250 million players as of March 2019.

Fortnite's commercial success enabled Epic to make several changes to its other product offerings. In July 2018, it reduced the revenue cut that it took for assets sold on the Unreal Engine Marketplace from 30% to 12%. Epic launched the Epic Games Store digital storefront to compete with services like Steam and GOG.com, not only taking a 12% cut of revenue compared to the industry standard of 30%, but also eliminated the 5% cut for games using the Unreal engine sold via the storefront. However the company also refocused its development efforts to provide more support for Unreal and Fortnite by ending support for Paragon and Unreal Tournament.

The financial success of Fortnite brought additional investment into Epic Games. Epic Games was one of eleven companies selected to be part of the Disney Accelerator program in 2017, providing Epic equity investment and access to some of Disney's executives, and potential opportunity to work with Disney in the future. Disney had selected both Epic and aXiomatic as potential leads in the growing esports arena.

Epic's has used its windfall to support its products. In January 2019, following a dispute between Improbable and Unity Technologies over changes to the acceptable uses of the Unity game engine, Epic announced it was partnering with Improbable to launch a $25 million fund to help bring developers they believe affected by these changes towards solutions that are more open and would have fewer service compatibilities. Epic launched a $100 million prize pool in February 2019 for Fortnite-related esports activities that it plans to run from 2019 onward. To expand its esports initiatives, Epic Games hired Nate Nanzer from Blizzard Entertainment and their commissioner of the Overwatch League in May 2019. At the 2019 Game Developers Conference, Epic announced it was launching a $100 million MegaGrants initiative, allowing anyone to apply for up to $500,000 in funding to support game development using the Unreal Engine or for any project, even if not directly games-related, that would benefit the Unreal Engine. One of the first major funded entities under this was the Blender Foundation in July 2019, having received $1.2 million from the MegaGrants funding, to help them to improve and professionalize their Blender tools for 3D art creation.

Epic Games was given the British Academy of Film and Television Arts Special Award in June 2019 for its past and continuing developments for the Unreal Engine, a software which also earned it the Engineering Excellence Award from the Hollywood Professional Association.

Epic announced in March 2020 it was establishing a new multi-platform publishing label, Epic Games Publishing. Alongside this, the label had announced three deals with developers Remedy Entertainment, Playdead and GenDesign in which Epic would fully fund development and publishing (including employee salaries, quality assurance, localization, and marketing) of one or more games from each studio, but leaving full creative control and IP rights to the studio, and sharing profits, following Epic's recouping of its investment, 50/50 with the studio. The company expanded their publishing options in October 2021 with Spry Fox and Eyes Out.

Unreal Engine 5 was announced on May 13, 2020, with plans for an early 2022 release. Alongside this announcement, Epic released its Epic Online Services, a free SDK toolset for online matchmaking and other similar cross-platform play support features based on Fortnite. Epic further waived all Unreal license fees retroactively for games up through the first $1 million in revenue, regardless of how they were published, retroactively starting from January 1, 2020.

Bloomberg reported that Epic was nearing a $17 billion valuation in June 2020 once it had completed a new $750 million investing round from its previous investors and newcomings T. Rowe Price Group Inc. and Baillie Gifford. The company partnered with Christopher Nolan and Warner Bros. to acquire distribution rights for Inception, Batman Begins and The Prestige as part of "Movie Nite" on Fortnite's "Party Royale" island. The film live streams were based on a user's country.

Across July and August, Epic raised an additional $1.78 billion in capital investment, bringing the company's post-money equity valuation to $17.3 billion. This included a $250 million investment from Sony, approximately a 1.4% stake in the company. The deal continues the two companies' technology collaboration after they had worked together on the development of Unreal Engine 5, but does not commit Epic to any exclusivity to the Sony PlayStation platform. Sweeney said that Sony had started talking with Epic about investing following the demonstration of the Unreal Engine 5 in May 2020.

Epic purchased Cary Towne Center in Cary, North Carolina, in January 2021, which had been scheduled to be closed and demolished after 2020, to be their new headquarters and campus, with the conversion to be complete by 2024.

Epic unveiled its MetaHuman Creator project in February 2021. Based on the technology from 3Lateral, Cubic Motion, and Quixel, the MetaHuman Creator is a browser-based application to allow game developers to create realistic human characters within a short amount of time starting from various presets, and then can be exported as pre-made models and animation files ready for use in Unreal Engine.

Epic announced a partnership with Cesium in March 2021 to bring its 3D geospatial data as a free add-on into the Unreal Engine.

In April 2021, Epic completed another $1 billion round of funding to support the company's "long-term vision for the metaverse", putting the company's valuation at $28.7 billion. The round of funding included another $200 million strategic investment from Sony. Sweeney remains the controlling shareholder with these additional investments.

The Information reported that Epic Games was launching a new scripted entertainment division in October 2021, bringing on three former executives from Lucasfilm to manage it, with initial plans for a Fortnite film.

In February 2022 Epic Games announced that at least half a billion accounts have been created on its platform.

Epic released the initial beta version of RealityScan, a mobile app that uses the tools from Capturing Reality and Quixel, in April 2022. RealityScan allows users to create 3D models that can be imported into Sketchfab using photos taken by the user.

Epic received another $1 billion each from Sony and from Kirkbi, the parent company of The Lego Group, in April 2022 for continued support of building out Epic's metaverse. These investments gave Kirkbi 3% ownership and increased Sony's to 4.9%. With these investments, Epic had an estimated valuation of $32 billion. Epic and Lego also announced their partnership to build a child-friendly space in the metaverse that same month.

The company announced in September 2023 that it was laying off 870 employees, along with divesting in Bandcamp to Songtradr and spinning off SuperAwesome into its own company. Sweeney said this move was needed to rein in spending, and did not anticipate there would be further layoffs in the future. Mediatonic reported a significant number of layoffs from their team, but remained part of Epic.

Acquisitions

In 2008, Epic acquired Utah based Chair Entertainment, developer of Undertow. Summer 2009 saw the launch of Chair's Shadow Complex, an adventure game inspired by the Metroid series.

Epic announced in October 2018 that it had acquired $1.25 billion in investment from seven firms: KKR, ICONIQ Capital, Smash Ventures, aXiomatic, Vulcan Capital, Kleiner Perkins, and Lightspeed Venture Partners. The firms join Tencent, Disney, and Endeavor as minority shareholders in Epic. With the investment, Epic Games was estimated to have a nearly $15 billion valuation in October 2018.

Besides expanding support for Fortnite and the Epic Games Store, these investments allowed Epic to acquire additional firms. In January 2018, it was announced that Epic had acquired Cloudgine, a developer of cloud-based gaming software. The company also announced the acquisition of Kamu, a firm that offered anti-cheat software called Easy Anti-Cheat, in October 2018. A year later, in January 2019, Epic acquired 3Lateral and Agog Labs. 3Lateral is known for its "digital human" creations, using a combination of digital technology, motion capture, and other tools to create photo-realistic human subjects in real-time. Epic plans to add some of 3Lateral's features to the Unreal Engine. Agog had developed SkookumScript, a platform for scripting events in video games; on the announcement of this acquisition, Agog stated they will stop the development of SkookumScript to work more on Unreal Engine scripting support.

Epic acquired Psyonix, the developer of Rocket League, in May 2019. Epic and Psyonix have had a past history, as Psyonix was originally founded a few miles from Epic's headquarters and had contributed to Epic's Unreal Tournament. Besides ongoing support for Rocket League, Psyonix developed an arcade-style car racing game inside of Fortnite, named Rocket Racing, which was added in December 2023.

Epic acquired the Twinmotion visualization tool used in architectural design in May 2019 from Abvent, and which they plan to expand and incorporate into their Unreal Engine offerings. Epic acquired Life on Air, the developers behind Houseparty, a social networking service, in June 2019. The monetary terms of the acquisition were not disclosed. Epic later shuttered Houseparty's app in October 2021, though the team behind it was continuing to develop social apps for Epic's platforms.

In November 2019, Epic acquired Quixel, the world's largest photogrammetry asset library which makes 3D models of objects based on real-world high-definition photography. Epic plans to open Quixel's existing library of models to users of Unreal Engine, while the Quixel staff will continue to build out its assets within Epic. The company acquired Cubic Motion, a studio that provides highly detailed digital facial animations for both films and video games, in March 2020.

Epic acquired SuperAwesome, a firm that has developed services to support children-safe games and services around games, in September 2020, as to incorporate these elements more into Epic's portfolio and to offer to other developers, particularly for games built around Epic's vision of metaverse games.

Epic acquired the digital facial animation firm Hyprsense in November 2020.

In January 2021, Epic acquired RAD Game Tools, a company that makes a variety of middleware solutions for video game development which Epic plans to incorporate into the Unreal Engine. RAD's tools will still remain available outside of Unreal as well.

In March 2021, Epic announced it was acquiring the Tonic Games Group, which includes developers Mediatonic and Fortitude Games. Mediatonic's Fall Guys, a major success during 2020, would remain available on Steam while Epic would help to bring it to additional platforms. Epic buying Tonic Games Group falls under the company's broader plans of creating its own metaverse. Additionally in March, Epic acquired Capturing Reality, the developers of RealityCapture, a photogrammetry suite that can create 3D models from numerous photographs. Epic plans to integrate RealityCapture into the Unreal Engine.

Epic Games acquired ArtStation, a professional artists' marketplace, in April 2021. As part of the acquisition, ArtStation members would gain access to Epic's tools and support such as the Unreal Engine, while the ArtStation marketplace will reduce its take on purchases from 30% to 12%. In July 2021, Epic acquired Sketchfab, a marketplace for 3D models. As with ArtStation, the acquisition allowed Sketchfab to reduce its pricing structure, lowering its revenue cut on purchases to 12% and making their Sketchfab Plus level of membership free.

In November 2021, Epic Games acquired Harmonix, a music game developer, for undisclosed terms. Harmonix continued to support their existing games including Rock Band 4 and Fuser while building out Fortnite's musical experiences, adding a Fortnite Festival mode that mimics the note-matching gameplay of Rock Band in December 2023, and Epic's larger metaverse plans,

Epic acquired the indie music platform Bandcamp in March 2022. Bandcamp was expected to remain independently operated under Epic while gaining the benefits of Epic's backend services. In April 2023, Epic acquired Brazilian studio Aquiris and changed its name to Epic Games Brasil, with the intention to be used in Fortnite. In September 2023, Epic sold Bandcamp to music licensing company Songtradr.

Products

Video games

Epic Games is known for games such as ZZT developed by founder Tim Sweeney, various shareware titles including Jazz Jackrabbit and Epic Pinball, the Unreal video game series, which is used as a showcase for its Unreal Engine, the Gears of War series which is now owned by The Coalition and Xbox Game Studios, Infinity Blade, Shadow Complex, Bulletstorm, and Fortnite.

Unreal Engine

Main article: Unreal Engine

Epic is the proprietor of five successful game engines in the video game industry. Each Unreal Engine has a complete feature set of graphical rendering, sound processing, and physics that can be widely adapted to fit the specific needs of a game developer that does not want to code their own engine from scratch. The five engines Epic has created are Unreal Engine 1, Unreal Engine 2 (including its 2.5 and 2.X releases), Unreal Engine 3, Unreal Engine 4 and Unreal Engine 5. Epic also provides support to the Unreal marketplace, a digital storefront for creators to sell Unreal assets to other developers. Further, since 2019, Epic has provided support for filmmakers which have utilized the Unreal Engine to create virtual sets for productions such as The Mandalorian, and will be backing major animated feature film production using Unreal, starting with Gilgamesh with studios Hook Up, DuermeVela and FilmSharks.

Epic Games Store

Epic announced its own Epic Games Store, an open digital storefront for games, on December 4, 2018, which launched a few days later with The Game Awards 2018 presentation. Differing from Valve's Steam storefront, which takes 30% of revenues (30/70 revenue-sharing agreement) from the sale of a game, the Epic Game Store will take 12%, as well as foregoing the 5% for games developed in the Unreal Engine, anticipating that these lower revenue-sharing agreements will draw developers to it.

Epic Online Services

Epic Online Services is a free SDK based on Epic's Fortnite code that allows developers to implement cross-platform play features in their games, including matchmaking, friends lists, leaderboards, and achievements, with support for Windows, macOS, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, iOS, and Android systems. It was first released for all in May 2020. Support for anti-cheat and voice chat was added in June 2021.

Productivity products

Other productivity products include ArtStation, Sketchfab, Twinmotion, RealityCapture, RealityScan and Quixel. Epic and Autodesk partnered in September 2022, making Twinmotion available to Revit subscribers.

The MetaHuman Creator is a project based on technology from three companies acquired by Epic—3Lateral, Cubic Motion, and Quixel—to allow developers to quickly create realistic human characters that can then be exported for use within Unreal. Through partnership with Cesium, Epic plans to offer a free plugin to provide 3D geospatial data for Unreal users, allowing them to recreate any part of the mapped surface of Earth. Epic will include RealityCapture, a product it acquired with its acquisition of Capturing Reality that can generate 3D models of any object from a collection of photographs taken of it from multiple angles, and the various middleware tools offered by Epic Game Tools.

Subsidiaries and divisions

Locations

Name	Location	Founded	Acquired	Ref(s).
Epic Games Australia	Burwood, Australia	2018	—
Epic Games Brasil	Porto Alegre, Brazil	2007	2023
Epic Games China	Shanghai, China	2006	—
Epic Games Germany	Berlin, Germany	2016
Epic Games Japan	Yokohama, Japan	2010
Epic Games Korea	Seoul, South Korea	2009
Epic Games Montreal	Montreal , Canada	2018
Epic Games Publishing	—	2020
Epic Games Seattle	Bellevue, Washington, US	2012
Epic Games Stockholm	Stockholm, Sweden	2018
Epic Games San Francisco	San Francisco , US	2012
Epic Games UK	Sunderland, England	2014

Subsidiaries

Name	Area	Location	Founded	Acquired	Ref(s).
3Lateral	Motion capture digitization	Novi Sad, Serbia	2008	2019
ArtStation	Professional artist marketplace	Montreal , Canada	2014	2021
Capturing Reality	Photogrammetry software	Bratislava, Slovakia	2015	2021
Cubic Motion	Facial animation	Manchester, England	2009	2020
Harmonix	Music game developer	Boston, Massachusetts	1995	2021
Psyonix	Video game development	San Diego, US	2000	2019
Quixel	Photogrammetry assets	Uppsala, Sweden	2011	2019
Epic Game Tools (formerly RAD Game Tools)	Game middleware	Bellevue, Washington	1988	2021
Sketchfab	3D model marketplace	Paris, France	2012	2021
Tonic Games Group (Mediatonic)	Video game development	London, England	2005	2021

Former

Name	Location	Founded	Acquired	Divested	Fate	Ref.
Agog Labs	Vancouver , Canada	2013	2019		Software development moved internally to Epic Games.
Bandcamp	Oakland, US	2008	2022	2023	Sold to Songtradr
Chair Entertainment	Salt Lake City, US	2005	2008	Unknown	Closed
Cloudgine	Edinburgh, Scotland	2012	2018		Software development moved internally to Epic Games.
Hyprsense	Burlingame, California	2015	2020		Software development moved internally to Epic Games.
Impossible Studios	Baltimore, US	2012	—	2013	Closed	Template:Centered
Kamu	Helsinki, Finland	2013	2018		Software development moved internally to Epic Games.
Life on Air	San Francisco , US	2012	2019		Software development moved internally to Epic Games.
People Can Fly (Epic Games Poland)	Warsaw, Poland	2002	2012	2015	Sold to management	Template:Centered
RAD Games Tools	Kirkland, Washington, US	1988	2021		Software development moved internally to Epic Games.
SuperAwesome	London, England	2013	2020	2023	Spun off

Legal issues

Litigation with Silicon Knights

On July 19, 2007, Canadian game studio Silicon Knights sued Epic Games for failure to "provide a working game engine", causing the Ontario-based game developer to "experience considerable losses". The suit alleged that Epic Games was "sabotaging" Unreal Engine 3 licensees. Epic's licensing document stated that a working version of the engine would be available within six months of the Xbox 360 developer kits being released. Silicon Knights claimed that Epic missed this deadline and that when a working version of the engine was eventually released, the documentation was insufficient. The game studio also claimed Epic had withheld vital improvements to the game engine, claiming they were game-specific, while also using licensing fees to fund the development of its own titles rather than the engine itself.

In August 2007, Epic Games counter-sued Silicon Knights, alleging the studio was aware when it signed on that certain features of Unreal Engine 3 were still in development and that components would continue to be developed and added as Epic completed work on Gears of War. Therefore, in a statement, Epic said that "SK knew when it committed to the licensing agreement that Unreal Engine 3 may not meet its requirements and may not be modified to meet them". Additionally, the counter-suit claimed that Silicon Knights had "made unauthorized use of Epic's Licensed Technology" and had "infringed and otherwise violated Epic's intellectual property rights, including Epic's copyrighted works, trade secrets, know how and confidential information" by incorporating Unreal Engine 3 code into its own engine, the Silicon Knights Engine. Furthermore, Epic asserted the Canadian developer broke the contract when it employed this derivative work in an internal title and a second game with Sega, a partnership for which it never received a license fee.

On May 30, 2012, Epic Games defeated Silicon Knights' lawsuit and won its counter-suit for $4.45 million on grounds of copyright infringement, misappropriation of trade secrets, and breach of contract, an injury award that was later doubled due to prejudgment interest, attorneys' fees and costs. Consistent with Epic's counterclaims, the presiding judge, James C. Dever III, stated that Silicon Knights had "deliberately and repeatedly copied thousands of lines of Epic Games' copyrighted code, and then attempted to conceal its wrongdoing by removing Epic Games' copyright notices and by disguising Epic Games' copyrighted code as Silicon Knights' own". Dever stated that evidence against Silicon Knights was "overwhelming", as it not only copied functional code but also "non-functional, internal comments Epic Games' programmers had left for themselves".

As a result, on November 7, 2012, Silicon Knights was directed by the court to destroy all game code derived from Unreal Engine 3, all information from licensee-restricted areas of Epic's Unreal Engine documentation website, and to permit Epic Games access to the company's servers and other devices to ensure these items have been removed. In addition, the studio was instructed to recall and destroy all unsold retail copies of games built with Unreal Engine 3 code, including Too Human, X-Men Destiny, The Sandman, The Box/Ritualyst, and Siren in the Maelstrom (the latter three titles were projects never released, or even officially announced).

On May 16, 2014, Silicon Knights filed for bankruptcy and a Certificate of Appointment was issued by the office of the Superintendent of Bankruptcy, with Collins Barrow Toronto Limited being appointed as trustee in bankruptcy.

Apple and Google disputes

Since as early as 2017, Tim Sweeney had questioned the need for digital storefronts like Valve's Steam, Apple's iOS App Store, and Google Play, to take a 30% revenue sharing cut, and argued that when accounting for current rates of content distribution and other factors needed, a revenue cut of 8% should be sufficient to run any digital storefront profitably. When Epic brought Fortnite Battle Royale to mobile devices, the company initially offered a sideloaded package for Android systems to bypass the Google Play store, but eventually also made it a store app.

On August 13, 2020, Epic Games updated Fortnite across all platforms, including the iOS and Android versions, to reduce the price of "V-Bucks" (the in-game currency) by 20% if they purchased directly from Epic. For iOS and Android users, if they purchased through the Apple or Google storefront, they were not given this discount, as Epic said they could not extend the discount due to the 30% revenue cut taken by Apple and Google. Within hours, both Apple and Google had removed Fortnite from their storefronts stating the means of bypassing their payment systems violated the terms of service. Epic immediately filed separate lawsuits against Apple and Google for antitrust and anticompetitive behavior in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California. Epic did not seek monetary damages in either case but instead was "seeking injunctive relief to allow fair competition in these two key markets that directly affect hundreds of millions of consumers and tens of thousands, if not more, of third-party app developers." In comments on social media the next day, Sweeney said that they undertook the actions as "we're fighting for the freedom of people who bought smartphones to install apps from sources of their choosing, the freedom for creators of apps to distribute them as they choose, and the freedom of both groups to do business directly. The primary opposing argument is: 'Smartphone markers [sic] can do whatever they want.' This is an awful notion. We all have rights, and we need to fight to defend our rights against whoever would deny them."

Apple responded to the lawsuit that it would terminate Epic's developer accounts by August 28, 2020, leading Epic to file a motion for a preliminary injunction to force Apple to return Fortnite to the App Store and prevent them from terminating Epic's developer accounts, as the latter action would leave Epic unable to update the Unreal Engine for any changes to iOS or macOS and leave developers that relied on Unreal at risk. The court granted the preliminary injunction against Apple from terminating the developer accounts as Epic had shown "potential significant damage to both the Unreal Engine platform itself, and to the gaming industry generally", but refused to grant the injunction related to Fortnite as "The current predicament appears of [Epic's] own making." In September 2020, Epic Games, together with thirteen other companies, launched the Coalition for App Fairness, which aimed for better conditions for the inclusion of apps into app stores.

U.S. District Court Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers issued her first ruling on Epic Games v. Apple on September 10, 2021. Rogers found in favor of Apple on nine of ten counts brought up against them in the case, including Epic's charges related to Apple's 30% revenue cut and Apple's prohibition against third-party marketplaces on the iOS environment. Rogers did rule against Apple on the final charge related to anti-steering provisions, and issued a permanent injunction that, in 90 days from the ruling, blocked Apple from preventing developers from linking app users to other storefronts from within apps to complete purchases or from collecting information within an app, such as an email, to notify users of these storefronts. Rogers' ruling was upheld at the Ninth Circuit on appeals, and the Supreme Court of the United States declined to hear the case, leaving Rogers' order against Apple in place.

Google initially sought to negotiate with Epic but later filed their own countersuit against Epic for breach of contract. The Google case was set as a jury trial, held in November and December 2023. Prior to this, other groups had filed their own lawsuits against Google for similar reasons as Epic, including a coalition of states and the Match Group, but these were settled just ahead of the trial. The jury found for Epic on all claims made, determining that Google maintained a monopoly on the Android marketplace by how it managed the Play Store and used its leverage as a big tech firm to make deal with partners, including some deals made as a result of the earlier settlements. A second phase of this trial to determine remedies is scheduled to occur in January 2024.

FTC child privacy settlement

In December 2022, Epic Games was fined a combined $520 million after the Federal Trade Commission accused the company of separate accounts related to Fortnite, one for violating COPPA related to children's privacy by collecting personal data without parent or guardian consent, exposing children and teens to potential harassment, and a second related to misleading users into making unwanted purchases while playing the game. Epic Games said "No developer creates a game with the intention of ending up here. The laws have not changed, but their application has evolved and long-standing industry practices are no longer enough. We accepted this agreement because we want Epic to be at the forefront of consumer protection and provide the best experience for our players. Over the past few years, we've been making changes to ensure our ecosystem meets the expectations of our players and regulators, which we hope will be a helpful guide for others in our industry."

Criticism

Since the partial investment by the Chinese company Tencent, some consumers have become wary of Epic Games' reliability and use of their data, particularly in relationship with the Epic Games Store. These concerns have been connected to broader issues of general distrust of the Chinese government and Chinese corporations among some Western video game players. Epic has stated that Tencent does not have access to any of this private data nor provides this to the Chinese government.

In late March 2020, accusations began circulating on social media that the Epic Games social networking app Houseparty led to other services such as Netflix and Spotify being hacked. However, both Epic and Life on Air claimed this was a smear campaign against its product and offered a $1 million bounty for anyone able to substantiate their claim.

Further reading

• Keighley, Geoffrey. "Blinded By Reality: The True Story Behind the Creation of Unreal". http://www.gamespot.com/features/makeunreal/. 
• Berardini, César A. (June 30, 2005). "Everything You Wanted to Know About Unreal". http://features.teamxbox.com/xbox/1199/Everything-You-Wanted-to-Know-About-Unreal/p1/. 
• Porter, Will (October 26, 2007). "The Epic tradition". https://www.gamesradar.com/the-epic-tradition/. 
• Blancato, Joe (May 13, 2008). "Epic's Rainmakers". http://v1.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/video-games/issues/issue_149/4896-Epic-s-Rainmakers. 
• Edwards, Benj (May 25, 2009). "From The Past To The Future: Tim Sweeney Talks". https://gamasutra.com/view/feature/132426/from_the_past_to_the_future_tim_.php. 
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