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Epic Games

Epic Games

Tagline

The New Name In computer Entertainment

Net Worth

$18,000,000,000

Started in (City)

Potomac, Maryland

Started in (Country)

United States

Incorporation Date

01st December, 1991

Bankruptcy Date

-

Founders

  • Tim Sweeney

About

Epic game is an American based publisher and software developer of games, founded by Tim Sweeney. Tim founded Epic in 1991 and was originally called Potomac Computer Systems. ZZT was the first video game released by the company in 1991 after the success of which Potomac came to be known as Epic MegaGames, Inc. in 1992. During the same Mark Rein bought the company and is to date the Vice President of Epic. The original headquarters of Epic was in Potomac where Tim’s parents lived. In 1999 the headquarters shifted to Cary and the name of the company, for the ease of pronunciation, was changed to Epic Games. One can’t miss Sweeney while talking about Epic. Timothy Dean Sweeney is a video game programmer, billionaire, and conservationist. He always had a knack for mechanics and became interested in arcade games in the 1970s. The founder of Epic worked hard to teach himself basic computer languages and programming.

Beginning

Epic's greatest discovery has been the Unreal Engine – a gaming engine that came into being in 1998 in a first-person shooter game Unreal. In 2014 Guinness Books of World Records ranked Unreal as the 'most successful gaming engine’. Apart from being an exceptional developer cum businessman Sweeney is also known for his philanthropic endeavors. He has salvaged more than 50,000 acres of forest land conserving the life of more than 130 rare and threatened plants and wildlife species. And has also donated acres of land to other conservation projects such as the United States Fish and Wildlife Service and Box Creek Wilderness. Tim has also won many accolades for his exceptional contribution to PC gaming. In 2012 he was inducted into the Academy of Interactive Arts and Science Hall of Fame for “changing the face of gaming with the advent of Unreal Engine and the commitment of Epic to bring both consumer and industry-facing technology to new heights. According to Forbes, he has a net worth of $5.3 billion whereas Bloomberg estimates his wealth to $8.5 billion.

Road to Success

Epic has had an extraordinary journey and has recently been making the headlines for quite a few range of issues. In 2017 the companies additional investment expanded with the release of Fortnite Battle Royale, along with an expansion in the Unreal Engine offerings. As a marketing strategy, Epic also organized sport around Fortnite. In the subsequent year, they also launched the Epic Games Store while going exclusive at the same time by offering free games to customers who used the store. 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. The player count continued to expand when Epic broke new ground by convincing Sony to change its stance on the 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 other services.

Challenges

Epic launched the Epic Games Store while going exclusive at the same time by offering free games to customers who used the store. Ripples popped up between Epic and Steam, which is a de facto platform of PC gaming when Epic decided that the new game Metro Exodus will be exclusive to the Epic Game Store. Many gamers who were used to playing new titles exclusively through Valve’s Steam Platform were angry. While some PC gaming fans are found it tiresome to navigate through the new store and install new software to play the game of their choice others tagged this move as foul play by the CEO and Epic Games Chinese investors Tencent. Many users who had pre-booked the new title on Valve through their bookings were honored the fans were still upset by Epic's decision of going all exclusive. Epic later went on record to agree that it made a mistake by making the games exclusive. Meanwhile, Epic has also given tough competition to Steam – a digital distribution service for video games by Valve. While some gamers are happy to see Epic giving Steam a tough time others are wary of Epics actions. There are pros cons of the battle between Epic and Steam, what has gained a lot of limelight is Epics revenue split – 88% goes to the publisher – as over Steam’s where only 70% goes to the publisher. At GDC (Game Developer Conference), 2019 Epic revealed that their game store had more than 80 million users out of which 40% were exclusive users i.e. they did not have a Steam account. There is no doubt that Epic has built a strong base with the game store and has also given a lot of money to a lot of developers.

Failures

Epic also filed lawsuits against Apple and Google for banning Epic games on their respective app stores. This happened in response to Epic bypassing their payment system to avoid giving cuts in sales. After the ban, the gaming company launched a consumer rights-focused campaign on social media - #FreeFortnite. The motive of the campaign was to make mobile app stores to be fairer to both developers and consumers. In a response statement, Google pointed to the fact that users can technically install apps from other locations, and said using the Google Play store was a "choice". While Fortnite remains available on Android, we can no longer make it available on Play because it violates our policies. On the other hand, Apple made a statement that Epic agreed to the App Store terms and guidelines freely and was glad they’ve built such a successful business on the App Store. The fact that their business interests now lead them to push for a special arrangement does not change the fact that these guidelines create a level playing field for all developers and make the store safe for all users. In the feud with Apple Sweeney twitted from his account that the fight is not about money but for the 'basic freedom of all consumers and developers’. At the most basic level, they were 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. Hopefully, the companies will come to an amicable solution.

Achievements

  • Epic Games was awarded British Academy of Film and Television Arts in 2019
  • Epic Games was one of eleven companies selected to be part of the Disney Accelerator program in 2017

Subsidies

  • Mediatonic
  • Psyonix
  • Tonic Games Limited
  • Cloudgine
  • RAD Game Tools
  • Chair Entertainment

CEOs

  • Tim Sweeney