| Type | Private |
|---|---|
| Industry | Interactive entertainment |
| Founded | Rockville, Maryland (1991) |
| Founder(s) | Tim Sweeney Mark Rein |
| Headquarters | Cary, North Carolina |
| Area served | Worldwide |
| Key people | Tim Sweeney (CEO) Mark Rein (Vice President) Mike Capps (President) Jay Wilbur (Vice President) Cliff Bleszinski (Design Director) Steve Polge (Lead Programmer) |
| Products | Games Castle of the Winds ZZT Jill of the Jungle Jazz Jackrabbit Epic Pinball Fire Fight One Must Fall: 2097 Unreal series Age of Wonders Gears of War series Shadow Complex Kiloblaster Game engine Unreal Engine Infinity Blade Infinity Blade II |
| Employees | 120 (2011)[1] |
| Subsidiaries | People Can Fly Chair Entertainment Yingpei Games (formerly Epic Games China) Epic Games Korea Epic Games Japan |
| Website | www.epicgames.com |
Epic Games, Inc., also known as Epic and formerly Epic MegaGames, is an American video game development company based in Cary, North Carolina. Its most recent success has been the Gears of War series of games, although it is also known for its Unreal Engine technology. It is the parent company of game developers Chair Entertainment, People Can Fly and Titan Studios. It has also set up studios in Shanghai, Seoul and Tokyo. Key developers at Epic Games include chairman, CEO and technical director Tim Sweeney, design director Cliff Bleszinski, and lead programmer Steve Polge. Jerry O'Flaherty was the studio art director from 2003-2007. Chris Perna has been the art director since O'Flaherty's departure from the company.
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Epic Games was initially founded under the name of 'Potomac Computer Systems' in 1991 by Tim Sweeney in Rockville, Maryland, releasing its flagship product, ZZT, the same year. During the latter portion of ZZT's life span, the company became known as Epic MegaGames and subsequently released numerous popular shareware games, including Epic Pinball, Brix, Jill of the Jungle, Kiloblaster, Solar Winds, Jazz Jackrabbit, and One Must Fall: 2097. 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 1996 Epic MegaGames produced a shareware isometric shooter called Fire Fight, developed by Polish Chaos Works.[2] It was later released commercially by Electronic Arts.
In 1997 Safari Software was acquired in whole by Epic MegaGames and some of their titles as well as other pre-1998 games are sold under the Epic Classics brand. Epic also released a platformer game in 1993 titled Xargon, created by Allen Pilgrim.
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, the Unreal Engine, to other game developers.
In 1999, the company changed its name to Epic Games and moved its offices, including its Rockville headquarters, to Cary, North Carolina. In 2006, Epic released the Xbox 360 and PC bestseller Gears of War and completed work on Unreal Tournament 3 for PC, PS3, and Xbox 360.
In summer 2009, Epic released the Chair developed Shadow Complex on Xbox Live Arcade. On November 7, 2008, Epic Games released Gears of War 2, the sequel to their bestselling game Gears of War, which continues the story of humanity's struggle against the Locust Horde.
Epic worked on an iOS game Infinity Blade[3] which was released on December 9, 2010.[4] They also released Gears of War 3, the third game in the Gears of War series on September 20, 2011.[5]
At the 2011 Spike Video Game Awards, Epic Games announced their new game Fortnite.
Due to the success of Gears of War, the studio was awarded:
Epic is the proprietor of three 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 its own engine from scratch. The three engines Epic has created are the Unreal Engine, Unreal Engine 2 (including its 2.5 and 2.X releases), and Unreal Engine 3, Epic's latest release.
Unreal Engine 3 has become by far the most commercially used engine of the three. In addition to Epic's own games Bulletstorm, Gears of War, Gears of War 2, Gears of War 3, Unreal Tournament 3 and Shadow Complex, UE3 has been used in widely in other games,
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