Epic Games Won’t Become a Publisher, Happy to Make Games
Citing laziness as their primary reasoning, Epic Games, creators of the industry dominant Unreal engine, say they have no intention of becoming a publisher, despite it seeming like an obvious next step to take. Epic have already moved past what we traditionally think of as a games developer, and it’s now probably more accurate to think of them as a developer for developers, such is the overwhelming success and prevalence of the Unreal engine.
Of course Epic still make games, Gears Of War for one, and um, well, err, there was Shadow Complex… two years ago. Ok, maybe not, but according to European territory manger Mike Gamble, when it comes to being a full on publisher of other peoples games, they “don’t want that responsibility.”
“We’re very happy to help are partners with technology and advice and with their development. But we don’t want to be responsible for them making money and for their product making it to the market.”
Sounds to us like the head honchos of Epic have been keeping a close ear on the Rockstar/Team Bondi fiasco, and in that regard we could see why they’d want to avoid the potential hassle of being a publisher.
I wouldn’t be surprised to see a lot of the industry (that makes 3D environments) go this way. The “3D engine layer” of game development will just become another layer of abstraction that you, as a game developer, purchase from another game developer and interact with, rather than create.
I think the counter argument is that using the same 3D engine might make a lot of games feel “the same”, but I would challenge that argument by inviting naysayers to play all the different games using the Unreal Engine. It’s quite remarkable how diverse they are and what developers have achieved on top of one 3D engine platform.
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