EPIC GAMES

'Epic Games', also known as 'Epic' and formerly as 'Epic MegaGames', is a computer game development company based in Cary, North Carolina, United States.

Contents

History

Game Engines

References

External links

History

'Epic Games' was initially founded under the name 'Potomac Computer Systems' in 1991 by Tim Sweeney in Rockville, Maryland. Potomac Computer Systems released its flagship product, ''ZZT'', the same year. During the latter portion of ZZT's life span, the company became known as Epic MegaGames. Gradually, the Epic brand grew with the advent of its shareware games, including ''Epic Pinball'', ''Jill of the Jungle'', ''Jazz Jackrabbit'' and ''. During this time, Epic also published and sold games developed by other developers such as those by Safari Software and also XLand's Robbo, Heartlight, and Electro Man; and Renaissance's Zone 66. In 1997 Safari Software was acquired in whole by Epic and some of their titles as well as other pre-1998 games are sold under the 'Epic Classics' brand.
In 1998, Epic MegaGames released ''Unreal'', a 3D first-person shooter, which expanded into a series of ''Unreal'' games. The company also began to license the core technology, or Unreal engine, used for the series to other game developers. In 1999, the company changed its name to Epic Games and moved its offices, including its Rockville headquarters, to Cary. In 2006, Epic released the Xbox 360 bestseller ''Gears of War'' and is currently working on ''Unreal Tournament III''. A port of ''Gears of War'' for Windows and Mac OS X is also in the works.^[2]. On August 20th 2007 they acquired a majoirty shareholding in Polish developer People Can Fly^[3].
Developers at Epic Games include the aforementioned Lead Programmer Tim Sweeney and game designer Cliff Bleszinski. In 2003, Jerry O'Flaherty was named Studio Art Director.

Game Engines

Main articles: Unreal Engine technology

Epic is the proprietor of three successful game engines in the videogame 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 its own engine from scratch. The three engines Epic has created are the Unreal Engine, Unreal Engine 2 and its 2.5 point release adding support for ingame vehicles and improved netcode. Epic's latest release is Unreal Engine 3.

References

1. Epic Games buys control of Polish company
2. E3 2007: Gears Of War PC Impressions
3. Epic Games buys People can fly studios.

External links

★ ''Epic Games'' official site

★ ''Epic Games'' official forum

★ ''Epic Games'' Unreal Engine site

★ Epic Games Inc. on Mobygames