Software:Unreal Tournament

Short description: 1999 first-person shooter video game

Unreal Tournament
Developer(s)	Epic Games Digital Extremes
Publisher(s)	GT Interactive (Win) Epic Games (Linux) MacSoft (Mac OS) Infogrames (PS2/Dreamcast)
Designer(s)	Cliff Bleszinski James Schmalz
Programmer(s)	Tim Sweeney Steve Polge Erik de Neve Jack Porter Brandon Reinhart
Artist(s)	Shane Caudle
Composer(s)	Straylight Productions Michiel van den Bos
Series	Unreal
Engine	Unreal Engine 1
Platform(s)	Windows, Linux, Mac OS, PlayStation 2, Dreamcast
Release	November 22, 1999 Windows NA: November 22, 1999 EU: December 3, 1999 Linux WW: November 23, 1999 Mac OS NA: January 17, 2000 PlayStation 2 NA: October 26, 2000 EU: April 20, 2001 Dreamcast NA: March 13, 2001 EU: June 29, 2001
Genre(s)	First-person shooter
Mode(s)	Single-player, multiplayer

Unreal Tournament is a 1999 first-person shooter game developed by Epic Games and Digital Extremes. The second installment in the Unreal series, it was first published by GT Interactive in 1999 for Windows, and later released on the PlayStation 2 and Dreamcast by Infogrames in 2000 and 2001, respectively. Players compete in a series of matches of various types, with the general aim of out-killing opponents. The PC and Dreamcast versions support multiplayer online or over a local area network. Free expansion packs were released, some of which were bundled with a 2000 re-release: Unreal Tournament: Game of the Year Edition.

Powered by the Unreal Engine, Unreal Tournament received universal acclaim, often being considered one of the greatest video games ever made, with reviewers praising the graphics, level design and gameplay, though the console ports were noted for having limitations. The design of the game shifted the series' focus to competitive multiplayer action with the releases of sequels Unreal Tournament 2003 in 2002, Unreal Tournament 2004 in 2004, and Unreal Tournament 3 in 2007.

In 2014, a pre-alpha version of a new game in the series was released titled simply Unreal Tournament, with the source code being freely available, but in 2017 Epic ceased development on it when the team transitioned over to Fortnite due both to the team becoming more interested in it than Unreal Tournament and it becoming more successful and gaining a much larger player base.

Gameplay

A typical game of Domination in progress

Unreal Tournament is an arena first-person shooter, with head-to-head multiplayer deathmatches being the primary focus of the game. The single-player campaign is a series of arena matches played with bots, where the player competes for the title of Grand Champion. The player moves up the tournament ladder in order to challenge the current champion, Xan Kriegor, a mysterious being with exceptional skill. Also available is a practice mode, in which, as its name implies, the player practices a match. Match settings (such as score and time limits) can be customized. Also available are "mutators", which drastically alter gameplay aspects, such as "InstaGib", which makes players compete with instant-kill Shock Rifles instead of the normal weapons. Weapons include the Enforcer, the Rocket Launcher and the Ripper, which fires ricocheting blades. Each weapon has two firing modes which have different effects: for example, Rippers can also fire non-ricocheting blades that explode on impact. A special weapon is the Redeemer, which fires a miniature nuke and causes a large and powerful explosion.

Items such as body armor (which reduces damage taken), health packs (which heal players) and damage amplifiers are scattered across levels. Levels are set in a variety of environments, including spaceships, outposts and buildings like castles and monasteries. Many contain features such as elevators (lifts) and teleporters and obstacles such as water and lava. The game is backwards compatible with the majority of Unreal multiplayer maps. The PC version includes a level editor in which players can create their own levels, and the PlayStation 2 version supports the use of a USB keyboard and mouse, enabling players to play in a similar manner to the PC version.

For team matches, bots are used to fill the roles of the player's teammates. The player can choose the bots' skill level or have it automatically adjust to the player's performance. Bots can be further customized by changing attributes such as names, appearance and weapon preferences. In team matches, players can give orders to bots on their team. The PC version supports multiplayer mode over the internet or a local area network (the original Unreal was mainly a single-player game).

Game types

• Assault: This game type is played with two teams, one assaulting a "base" and the other defending it. The map is set up with objectives which the attacking team must complete (usually in sequence) such as shutting down a power generator, or entering an area. The team who first attacks then defends, and attempts to defend for the entire time they attacked. If they accomplish this, they win. If the team defending first assaults the base faster than the other team, they win. If both teams defend for the maximum amount of time the match is a tie. The Dreamcast version does not feature this mode.
• Capture the Flag: Players compete to capture the other team's flag and return it to their base. Competitive teams must use a great deal of teamplay. Both teams must defend the base from incoming attackers and get into the other team's base, take their flag and return to base.
• Deathmatch: A classic every-man-for-himself player vs. player combat, the objective is to out-kill all opposing players.
• Domination: Two teams compete to control various control points to earn points. Standard maps contain three control points. Control of these points is initially accomplished through occupation (physically occupying the space), but control of a point continues until a player from another team occupies the space. The first team to reach the point limit, or that has the most points when a time limit has expired, wins.
• Last Man Standing: Similar to Deathmatch, the player's objective is to remain alive longer than their opponents, putting an emphasis on number of deaths rather than kills. Players start with all weapons (except the Redeemer) fully loaded and have a set number of lives. Power-ups, including health and ammunition packs, are unavailable. Once a player runs out of lives, they lose.
• Team Deathmatch: Up to four teams compete to out-kill the opposing teams.

Four "bonus packs" were released, each adding maps, characters, or features. For example, Bonus Pack 1 adds "relics" as mutators. Relics are special items that grant a significant advantage to their holder. They include (but are not limited to), the Relic of Vengeance, which creates an explosion when its holder dies, the Relic of Regeneration, which regenerates the health of the holder, and the Relic of Redemption, which makes its holder respawn elsewhere with full health and weapons intact when they would normally die. Bonus Pack 4 adds a new version of Xan Kriegor.

Plot

During the Human–Skaarj war, the New Earth Government was formed. Mining was the primary method of financing the war, but was unpopular with the working class, who grew weary of the working conditions and the war. The humans were losing the war, and riots broke out. The Terran system was surrounded by Skaarj forces, but a government team destroyed their mothership, and the Skaarj withdrew. Afterward, revolts and violence among the mining colonies were on the increase, and efforts to deal with them were unsuccessful. The government then came up with the idea of giving the violence an outlet instead. "Consensual murder" was legalized in the year 2291, enabling people to fight to the death under organized conditions. The Liandri Mining Corporation worked with the government and organized leagues and public exhibitions. Soon, these matches became more profitable than mining, and Liandri formed a professional league to compete in a "Grand Tournament", the most popular event in the sport. The game takes place in 2341, fifty years after the fights were first legalized.

Development

Cliff Bleszinski (pictured) and James Schmalz were the lead designers of their respective companies and contributed significantly to the final game content.

With a budget of $2 million, using 350,000 lines of C++ and UnrealScript, Unreal Tournament took around a year and a half to develop. When Unreal (the first installment of the Unreal series) was released in May 1998, it was well received by the press, but it soon became apparent that the quality of the network code used for multiplayer matches was hampering the game's further success. In the months following Unreal's release, improving the game's multiplayer part became the top priority of the development team. Epic Games started considering an official expansion pack intended to improve the network code while also featuring new maps and other gameplay elements.

The team began work on the expansion in summer 1998, but the task became complicated by Epic's organizational structure. During the development of Unreal, the team members at Digital Extremes were working in Ontario, Canada, while the members at Epic were based in North Carolina, United States, requiring regular travel to Ontario. To remedy this, Epic decided to centralize the teams in Raleigh, North Carolina, and by September, work on the expansion could begin. Lead programmer Steve Polge set about laying the foundations for the new game types, such as Capture the Flag and Domination, and level designers created the first round of maps for testing. The content grew quickly, and soon the team realized that it had underestimated the task. In November, after a meeting with publisher GT Interactive, Mark Rein suggested releasing the work as a stand-alone game instead of an expansion. The team was reticent at first, but soon accepted the idea, and in December the game became known internally as Unreal: Tournament Edition.

The development team for Unreal Tournament consisted of around 16 people. Most team members had worked on Unreal, though Epic hired a number of new developers to reinforce the team. Programmer Brandon Reinhart was one such hire, joining Epic in August 1998 to help with the support of Unreal and the development of Unreal Tournament. That December, Reinhart discovered an Unreal mod called UBrowser, which provided a new user interface for finding multiplayer matches. After showing it to James Schmalz, the lead designer at Digital Extremes, Schmalz decided to hire the mod's author, Jack Porter. After only a few weeks Porter was already working with the team, replacing the game's existing menu system with his new interface. Epic founder Tim Sweeney worked on improving the networking code along with Steve Polge, who also wrote code for AI, player physics and general gameplay. Erik de Neve was responsible for the LOD character rendering, and various extra optimizations.

During the game's development, the team lacked artists. The art director at Epic Games, Shane Caudle, and the artists at Digital Extremes could not make enough new textures because of the amount of diversity in characters and maps. To help with the skin and texture production, Epic contracted Steve Garofalo. The game's level and content management program, UnrealEd, was written in Visual Basic and considered buggy, but no one had time to fix it. The game engine had an object-oriented design, and the scripting language, UnrealScript, was considered to be more like Java. The modularity of the object-oriented design meant that programmers could make large changes without affecting other parts of the game. Other tools used during development included Microsoft Visual Studio and 3D Studio Max. All of the weapon sound effects were created by Sonic Mayhem. The soundtrack for the game, which employed the system of module files, was written by Alexander Brandon, Michiel van den Bos, Andrew Sega, Dan Gardopee, Peter Hajba and Tero Kostermaa. Unreal Tournament had support for the EAX Version 2.0 3D positional audio technology by Creative Labs and A3D 2.0 HRTF technology by Aureal Semiconductor out of the box.

In 1999, Epic Games released a playable demo on September 16. This version of the demo was only compatible with Glide-based accelerators. An updated demo version, with support for OpenGL and Direct3D cards, was released on September 28. Unreal Tournament went gold (became ready for release) on November 16, shipping a few days later on November 22. The Mac version went gold on December 15. The Dreamcast version was developed by Secret Level, who had to drop Assault mode, along with many larger maps, due to the Dreamcast having insufficient memory. A Linux port of Unreal Tournament was also in development. The goal of the project was to improve the quality of the Linux port of the game as well as strengthen the mod authoring community and teach Epic about open source projects. In 2000, Loki Software made an exclusive agreement with Epic Games to maintain and support the Linux version of Unreal Tournament, offering new features, addressing any technical issues and achieving revision parity with the Windows version. Bonus Pack 1 was released on February 25, 2000. Unreal Tournament was re-released in fall (autumn) 2000 as Unreal Tournament: Game of the Year Edition, which includes the first three bonus packs and mods such as Rocket Arena, a one-on-one combat mode.

Reception

Reception

Aggregate scores Aggregator Score GameRankings PC: 94% Metacritic PC: 92/100 PS2: 77/100 SDC: 90/100 Review scores Publication Score AllGame PC: CGSP PC: CGW PC: CVG PC: 9/10 Edge PC: 7/10 SDC: 6/10 Eurogamer PC: 10/10 Game Informer PS2: 9/10 GameFan PC: 95/100 GamePro PC: 4.5/5 PS2: 4.5/5 GameRevolution PC: A− PS2: B SDC: B+ GameSpot PC: 9.5/10 PS2: 8.2/10 SDC: 9.4/10 GameSpy PC: 94/100 PS2: 77% SDC: 8/10 GamesRadar+ PS2: 69% IGN PC: 9.6/10 MAC: 9.6/10 PS2: 8.4/10 SDC: 9.4/10 Maximum PC PC: 9/10 Next Generation PC: 4/5 PS2: 3/5 SDC: 4/5 PC Gamer (UK) PC: 92/100 PC Gamer (US) PC: 90/100 PC PowerPlay PC: 94/100 PC Zone PC: 90/100 X-Play SDC: Gamezilla PS2: 86% SDC: 87% Happy Puppy MAC: 9/10 SDC: 8/10 Inside Mac Games MAC: 9/10 Dreamcast Magazine (UK) SDC: 87% Maxim SDC:

In the United States alone, Unreal Tournament sold 100,998 copies by the end of 1999, according to PC Data. The game's sales in the country reached 128,766 copies, for revenues of $5.42 million, by early 2000. This placed it behind competitor Quake III: Arena over the same period. From January through October 2000, Unreal Tournament sold 234,451 units and earned $8.94 million in the region. The game ultimately received a "Silver" sales award from the Entertainment and Leisure Software Publishers Association (ELSPA), indicating sales of at least 100,000 copies in the United Kingdom. By November 2001, Unreal Tournament's total sales were close to 2 million units.

Upon its release, Unreal Tournament received universal acclaim from critics, earning an overall score of 92 out of 100 on aggregate review website Metacritic. Similarly, Unreal Tournament earned an overall score of 94% on the video gaming review aggregator GameRankings. Mainstream press reviews lauded the title for its graphics, gameplay and level design, with Computer and Video Games calling it "a technical and game-playing marvel". In March 2000, Unreal Tournament was second on a list of best-selling games in Computer Dealer News trade magazine, but the development team believed sales would have been higher if the game was released in October 1999.

Jeff Gerstmann of GameSpot praised the graphics, multiplayer gameplay, weapons, and level design. The game was similarly reviewed by GameSpy, who stated that the title raised the bar for first person multiplayer games. British magazine PC Zone was pleased with the "very intelligent" bots, but criticized the "truly terrible" music. AllGame complimented the addictiveness of Assault mode, and the game's replay value, calling it "a glowing, shining beacon in a sea of multi-player games". Computer and Video Games found the game to have an "excellent" single-player mode, adding that with an average AI skill the player will "progress with little serious effort, taking a thrilling ride through spectacularly atmospheric levels and increasing numbers of opponents". Eurogamer echoed that sentiment, and commented that the game is playable on low-end systems.

Writing for GamePro, Nash Werner said the multiplayer flexibility was "immense", adding that mutators like low gravity, Sniper Arena and Chainsaw Melee "change everything about the way deathmatch is played". Game Revolution agreed and praised the bots and maps, although it complained that player models were not particularly varied and that the game was not "as visually appealing as the original Unreal". IGN stated that Unreal Tournament received the highest ever score at the time of their review, describing the game as nearly flawless. British magazine PC Gamer complimented the artificial intelligence, and its American counterpart did the same to the game's "gorgeous" graphics and "incredible" editing tools. Computer Games Strategy Plus described the artificial intelligence as "outstanding", and commented that the Domination and Assault modes add interest. The Electric Playground, who rated the game 10 out of 10, praised the "innovative" level design, while Computer Gaming World gave it five stars out of five, saying that Unreal Tournament redeemed both Epic and the Unreal franchise to action gamers.

The Macintosh version of Unreal Tournament was equally praised. IGN enjoyed the "perfect" gameplay and multiplayer options, but criticized the high system requirements and the user interface. Nevertheless, the game was described as "the must have title" for Mac. Happy Puppy described the game as "king of deathmatch" due to its "incredible value" gaming and "amazing" variety. Inside Mac Games praised the replay value, but criticized the high system requirements. In December 1999, Unreal Tournament was inducted into the Macworld Hall of Fame.

Reviewing the Dreamcast version, Gamezilla complimented the sound, but criticized the graphics and lack of a plot. Happy Puppy described the game as "intensely fun", but criticized the "mediocre" sound. Edge criticized the lack of Assault mode. The British Dreamcast Magazine (not to be confused with the Official Dreamcast Magazine or DC-UK) was ambivalent to the port's gameplay, visuals and sounds, noting its "blasting" action and the removal of online multiplayer from the European version of the game. GameSpy cited both slow framerate speeds and low sound quality as problems with the Dreamcast version. Scott Steinberg of Maxim rated the game 4 out of 5 stars, labeling it as a "stone-cold killer" that "runs like Carl Lewis on a Jolt Cola binge" while noting its "surprisingly workable" standard game pad controls.

The PlayStation 2 release did not fare as well as the PC and Dreamcast versions. GameSpy criticized the graphics of the PS2 version, calling it "uninspired". Its conclusion said about sluggish gameplay, somewhat washed out colors and textures. IGN praised the replayability, and stated that the sound is faithful to the PC version. Gamezilla criticized the PlayStation 2 version's lack of multiplayer support compared to the PC version along with Game Informer, who said despite its flaws, the game "holds its own as one of the best FPSs out there". On the other hand, the port scored 3 out of 10 in the television show The Electric Playground, with the reviewer lauding the audio and graphics but feeling that the controls could have been better implemented.

In addition to receiving Eurogamer's first-ever perfect score, Unreal Tournament was named by the site one of the best games of 1999. Launch editor John Bye chose the shooter as the game of the past decade (1999–2009) and said: "Unreal Tournament is one of the few games in the early days of Eurogamer that I kept going back to months after I'd finished reviewing it, a game that I played to unwind after a long day playing other games. Whether it was trying to break the one-minute barrier in the speed running mayhem of Assault mode, battling back and forth amongst the alleyways of Domination, or dropping shrapnel shells at people's feet with the wonderfully chunky flak cannon in a fast and furious free-for-all deathmatch, Unreal Tournament was an endless source of entertainment". In 2004, Unreal Tournament was inducted into the Computer Gaming World Hall of Fame. Unreal Tournament was a nominee for PC Gamer US's 1999 "Best Action Game" and "Best Multiplayer Game" awards, which went to Software:Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Rogue Spear and Team Fortress Classic, respectively. They called it "a brilliant multiplayer game that blew its main rival Quake III away with awesome bots, graphics, game types and online functionality". Unreal Tournament was named as a finalist by the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences for "Game of the Year", "Computer Game of the Year", "Computer Action Game of the Year", and won "Outstanding Achievement in Visual Engineering" at the 3rd Annual Interactive Achievement Awards. The Dreamcast version Unreal Tournament was a finalist for "11th Annual GamePro Readers' Choice Awards" for "Best Combat Game of The Year", but lost to Software:Halo: Combat Evolved for Xbox.

In 2011, G4tv included two maps from this game, Facing Worlds and DM-Deck 16, in its list of the "Most Influential FPS Multiplayer Maps Ever". In 2013, PC Gamer labeled the Flak Cannon the greatest gun in PC gaming. In 2014, Complex magazine placed Unreal Tournament as number three on its list of "The 50 Best First Person Shooters Of All Time", while Moviepilot placed it as number two on its list of "The 7 Most Influential Video Games Ever". In November 2014, Kotaku named Facing Worlds the best multiplayer map. In January 2016, Red Bull labeled Facing Worlds one of the 10 greatest FPS multiplayer levels of all time. In July 2016, the game was ranked number 20 on Bit-Tech's The 50 Best PC Games of All Time.

Awards

List of awards and nominations
Publication	Category	Result	Ref.
Computer Gaming World	Game of the Year	Won
	Best Level Design	Won
GameSpy	Game of the Year	Won
	Special Achievement in Artificial Intelligence	Won
GameSpot	Action Game of the Year	Won
	Game of the Year (Readers' Choice)	Won
	Action Game of the Year (Readers' Choice)	Won
	Game of the Year	Nominated
	Best Multiplayer Game	Nominated
	Best Graphics, Artistic Design	Nominated
	Best Shooting Game (Console)	Nominated
	Best Dreamcast Game	Nominated
Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences (3rd Annual Interactive Achievement Awards)	Game of the Year	Nominated
	Computer Game of the Year	Nominated
	Computer Action Game of the Year	Nominated
	Outstanding Achievement in Visual Engineering	Won
CNET	PC Game of the Year	Nominated
	Action Game of the Year	Nominated
	Multiplayer Game of the Year	Won
Game Revolution	Best Online PC Game	Won
Games Domain	Action Game of the Year (Readers' Choice)	Won
Daily Radar	Best PC Game	Won
	Game of the Year	Runner-up
	Game of the Year (Readers' Choice)	Runner-up
Macworld	Best Network Shooter for the Mac	Won
GameStar	Multiplayer Game of the Year	Won
PC Player	Best First Person Shooter	Won
PC Zone	Game of the Year (Readers' Choice)	Won
	First Person Action Game of the Year (Readers' Choice)	Won
	Game of the Millennium	Nominated

Player community

USS San Jacinto (CG-56) crewmembers playing the game, 2002

Lead designer Cliff Bleszinski credited much of the game's success to its community. As he said in the November 2001 issue of Maximum PC: "Unreal Tournament would not have sold nearly two million copies if it did not have support from the community... We ship the very same tools that we used to build the game, and folks use these tools to realize their own visions of first-person action". Like Unreal, Unreal Tournament is designed to be easily programmable and highly modularized. Through its scripting environment UnrealScript and level editor UnrealEd, developers are able to modify easily most parts of the game to both manipulate default game behavior and to supplement the game with their own mods. These range from slight changes on some aspects of gameplay (such as map voting) to total conversions. One modification, ChaosUT, became popular enough that it was included with the 'Game of the Year' edition of the game, while Software:Tactical Ops: Assault on Terror was released as a stand-alone retail product.

Unreal Tournament was played at the World Cyber Games in 2001 and 2002.

Legacy

The success of the original Unreal Tournament spawned four sequels, including Unreal Tournament 2003 and Unreal Tournament 2004, Unreal Tournament 3 and the cancelled Unreal Tournament reboot. The yearly naming structure, based around marketing the franchise as a competitive sports title, was abandoned before the launch of the third sequel. Dark Sector by Digital Extremes was initially planned as a spiritual successor to Unreal Tournament. The game was released for free on the Internet Archive in late October 2024. In 2019 the OldUnreal community was given approval by Epic for providing semi-official patches to support modern hardware and operating systems.

Adaptation

Unreal Tournament is the subject of anthology series Secret Level, created by Tim Miller for Amazon Prime Video and released in December 2024. The episode, Unreal Tournament: Xan, has the voices of Elodie Yung, Gideon Emery, Mitch Eakins, Chris Payne Gilbert, Carlin James, and Fred Tatasciore.

References

Sources

• Madigan, Jamie (1999). Unreal Tournament Official Strategy Guide. Minneapolis: GW Press. ISBN 978-1-56893-946-9. 

Further reading

• Reinhart, Brandon (June 9, 2000). "Postmortem: Epic Games' Unreal Tournament". https://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/131569/postmortem_epic_games_unreal_.php?print=1. 
• Flak (December 21, 2012). "The Longevity Of Unreal Tournament: Part One". https://www.epicgames.com/community/the-longevity-of-unreal-tournament-part-one. 
• Flak (January 3, 2013). "The Longevity Of Unreal Tournament: Part Two". https://www.epicgames.com/community/the-longevity-of-unreal-tournament-part-two. 
• Flak (January 8, 2013). "The Longevity Of Unreal Tournament: Part Three". https://www.epicgames.com/community/the-longevity-of-unreal-tournament-part-three. 
• Flak (January 16, 2013). "The Longevity Of Unreal Tournament: Part Four". https://www.epicgames.com/community/the-longevity-of-unreal-tournament-part-four. 
• Lane, Rick (February 23, 2014). "Unreal Tournament retrospective". http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2014-02-23-unreal-tournament-retrospective. 

External links

• Unreal Tournament current official website from Epic Games
• Unreal Tournament at MobyGames
• Template:PCGamingWiki

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. 
• Totilo, Stephen (December 7, 2011). "The Quiet Tinkerer Who Makes Games Beautiful Finally Gets His Due". https://kotaku.com/the-quiet-tinkerer-who-makes-games-beautiful-finally-ge-5865951. 
• Plante, Chris (April 2, 2012). "Better with age: A history of Epic Games". https://www.polygon.com/2012/10/1/3438196/better-with-age-a-history-of-epic-games. 
• Freeman, Will (August 12, 2013). "Development Legends: An Unreal tale". https://www.mcvuk.com/development-legends-an-unreal-tale/. 
• Crecente, Brian (May 1, 2016). "Their future is Epic: The evolution of a gaming giant". https://www.polygon.com/a/epic-4-0. 
• Huddleston, Tom Jr. (August 9, 2018). "'Fortnite' launched battle royale a year ago today – here's how the company behind the billion-dollar game was founded by a college kid". https://www.cnbc.com/2018/06/12/epic-games-company-behind-fortnite-was-founded-by-a-college-kid.html. 
• Griffith, Erin (August 25, 2020). "To Fight Apple and Google's Grip, Fortnite Creator Mounts a Crusade". https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/25/technology/fortnite-creator-tim-sweeney-apple-google.html.