Tom's Games Interviews Mark Rein from Epic Games
At this year's GDC Epic Games showed off an updated version of Unreal Engine 3 as well as enjoying some attention from Microsoft's official announcement of Gears of War 2. We caught up with Mark Rein briefly during the announcement of the PC Gaming Alliance but we were also able to have a longer sit down with the Epic VP after a press session for their premiere game development engine.
Tom's Games: What do you see as the biggest threat to PC gaming?
Mark Rein: At Epic Games we have our narrow view of PC gaming. We make these high-end action-movie type games that really push hardware. That's our whole raison d'être. Our view is pretty narrow so you have to take it with a grain of salt but we're interested in preserving the ability to ship those high-end shipped-on-a-disc super high-end experiences that... I said "high-end" twice. That's how high-end; double high-end. That's our goal: to preserve the ability to ship those kinds of action-movie type games on the PC.
The trend with those games is that they're going to the console in huge numbers. There're a lot of reasons for it but to us it's something worth saving. There're a lot more PCs out there than there are Xbox 360s and Playstation 3s combined but unfortunately people aren't using them as entertainment devices; at least not for gaming. If I buy a laptop from Best Buy chances are it won't be able to play the kinds of games we make. That is an area of influence that we'd like to have so we can convince people to fix that situation and have a more level playing field.
Why is a $3000 laptop, or in the case of the Macbook Air, why is a $2000 laptop less capable of playing games than a $280 game console? That's my point. We're not talking about putting an NVIDIA 8800 in every single one of those machines but the Macbook Pro is a perfect example. It's got an 8600 GT perfectly capable of playing games. If that was our minimum spec we'd be in great shape. Everybody could at least get some experience gaming and then decide, "Do I want to continue gaming on my PC? Do I want to upgrade? Do I want to get a bigger high-end rig?"
I think ultimately for the Dells of this world that's a positive thing because they could try and sell [users] a higher-margin device. But those lower-priced devices have to at least give people enough to get the experience; to get bitten by the bug, if you will. That's [the PCGA's] main goal. There're others as well. Piracy's a huge problem. It'd be great to have the industry work together to figure out how to resolve that but it's a much tougher problem. [Piracy's] a huge obstacle but shrinking the difference between the low-end hardware and the high-end hardware is important. It's just limiting our audience.
Gears of War was a runaway hit for Epic Games and Microsoft.
Tom's Games: How does digital distribution fit into your strategy?
Mark Rein: It's just another retail outlet. You can buy Unreal Tournament 3 off Direct2Drive. It's just another retailer as far as we're concerned. Each one of those digital download sites is just like adding another retailer. Yeah we should have more of them, no question, but no one retailer is a whole market place.
Tom's Games: There was a quote in the January 2008 issue of Game Developer magazine - which was in the bag we all got here at GDC - that I wanted to ask you about. It's from Brian Eddy, Creative Director of Stranglehold, regarding Unreal Engine 3. He says:
"Working with an incomplete engine was difficult and far from optimal, but it was unavoidable since we didn't have an alternate engine or toolset for next-gen. Unreal worked really well in giving art a big head start, but keeping up with code drops from Epic took lots of time."
My impression from that quote is that the licensed engine is incomplete and even though Epic is patching it the engine and the patches are hampering the development of other titles that have licensed the technology. Is that something you can talk about?
Mark Rein: I have no idea what that's all about.
Tom's Games: OK.
Were you pleased with the sales of the PC version of Gears or War?
Mark Rein: Yeah it's doing OK actually.
Tom's Games: Do you think that releasing it so long after the Xbox 360 version had already been out was...
Mark Rein: Oh Gears of War. I thought you were talking about Unreal Tournament. Sorry.
Tom's Games: No, Gears of War on PC.
Mark Rein: I don't know. Yeah... I think... you know... I don't know. I haven't really thought about that. Let's move on to a different question.
Tom's Games: Has...
Mark Rein: Nobody's asked me that, to be honest. I don't have a great answer.
Tom's Games: You don't have a premade PR answer for a question about Gears of War on PC? Is it not even an issue? No one has brought that up?
Mark Rein: Gears of War is a console game.
Tom's Games: Well why did you put it on PC?
Mark Rein: I don't know.
Tom's Games: What about Gears of War 2. Is that going to be simultaneously released on PC and 360?
Mark Rein: No. It's an Xbox 360 exclusive. That's what it is for now anyway.
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