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Epic Games Signs Microsoft Publishing Deal
Thanks to Gamers.com for the news that Unreal creators Epic have signed a long-term publishing deal with Microsoft. According to the piece, "Microsoft will publish 'several' future Epic projects - as yet unnamed - exclusively for Xbox and Windows", and it's noted that "Epic is the sole owner of the Unreal name and franchise", although Atari is still publishing Unreal Tournament 2004 for PC this November. Included in the Microsoft deal are two projects from new Epic offshoot Scion Studios, promising to "explore development opportunities within Epic Games' established action titles, and beyond", possibly implying at least one Unreal-branded, Microsoft-published title - unless the "established action title" in question is Jazz Jackrabbit.
No conspiracy here. Microsoft does what it does best: spot talent and buy it.
If I had 40+ billion dollars just burning a hole in my pocket I'd buy my way into the games industry too.
No sig for you!!
That can't program/design their way into the market - so the just buy the whole slices of the market from under everybody else.
Lame.
Moneyed corporations, non-working 'poor' and criminal prisoners are turning productive citizens into tax-slaves.
And buying out companies that make Linux more attractive - UT and UT2003 run GREAT on my system under Linux. We arent going to see Linux binaries for future products published by Microshaft.
/usr/games/fortune
Microsoft's acquisitions are always designed not only to serve as revenue generators, but also as cockblockers for the competition.
In the games industry alone, they've done this to Mac users (Bungie), Nintendo (Rare - honestly, Nintendo got rid of them at the right time, IMO), and now Linux gamers (Epic/Unreal).
Basically, they use their large coffers from their Windows/Offce monopoly to prop up their side projects and diddle with everyone else.
Mac would have become one of the greatest gaming platform with a powerful processor and huge amounts of bandwidth... until now. MS is fucking everybody again - with profits from its illegal monopoly.
Thanks Bush admin for laying off of MS.
...And when they came for me, there was no one left to speak out for me." - Martin Niemoeller (1892-1984)
Many years ago (maybe 7 or 8?) I played a game that I could have sworn Epic put out, but I don't see it on the Epic Classic Games site. Maybe some of the folks here remember it.
:)
I don't remember a whole lot, other than it was a 2D side-scrolling game where you were a wizard, and were collecting little lightning bolts and things. The only other thing I remember is that we spent hours on that game passing time on 12 hour midnight shifts as airmen in an Air Force network operations center...
Karma: Marginal (mostly due to the border around the website)
I wonder how this affects games that are supposedly already in development. Unreal 2 came and went, and they're milking all the good will they can out of the UT franchise, but that leaves the in-house project they've supposedly been developing for the next major iteration of the Unreal engine-- supposedly called, if memory serves, Unreal Warfare.
This was the game of the trio that always seemed the most interesting to me-- they talked about it being the most advanced of the three, what little snippets we got implied that it was far more ambitious, and, well, the name is simply the coolest.
The article (short as it is) says that Epic still holds the Unreal franchise, but I wonder if they won't be tempted to abandon it-- has anybody seen any new screens in the last, oh, year?-- for a bigger and better deal from their new patrons.
I'm going to miss those Linux ports.
Reminds me of when MS bought Rare (unconfirmed, my little bro says so).
Time to boycott Unreal. Quake still seems to be un-bought, right?
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
You mean Hocus Pocus? That game was passing fun, but it had some issues where you could get yourself stuck, because special effect potions would run out before you got to where you needed to be unless you ran there.
You're thinking of an Apogee game named "Hocus Pocus." It looks like you can still buy it from the site for $10.
I've got a feeling that we've gotten down to a few large houses, which are all cramming what I consider overreaching EULAs and aggravating copy protections down our throats, and would like to confirm my suspicion (didn't gaming feel a bit more diverse and fun between five and ten years ago?)
Try not. Do or do not, there is no try.
-- Dr. Spock, stardate 2822-3.
Yes, MS owns Rare, Nintendo dumped them a year or so ago after Rare failed to generate any sort of significant revenue.
It is however unclear as to if Rare is going to be much use for MS though. In their last couple of years working with nintendo, Rare had gained a notorious rep for failing to get anything released even close to its deadline (perfect dark, starfox adventures and some others were all 2 years or more late) And their recent efforts while solid, have of late lacked the craftsmanship that their earlier work did. Some of this is because a good chunk of their staff left Rare to form the developer "Free Radical" some of the burnout may have just been related to not wanting to work with Nintendo anymore, who knows.
Epic wasn't much of a player on the console market in the first place, Sony might miss the Unreal ports but i don't think they did all that well anyway did they? I don't know, I mean Epic is a good name but I can think of other developers that would be better targets. Afterall, MS isn't trying to gain new games, they are trying to keep games away from the other consoles.
On Wall Street they say "buy low, sell high" On the pad we say, "buy high, sell high" Isn't that somehow better?
Which is exactly what Atari nee Infogrames, Electronic Arts, Vivendi, etc. have done over the years. But it's Microsoft in this case so they suck, I guess.
PISS OFF Im not buying your crap no matter if you buy out all the competion, or wait I think you pretty much have.
+-+-+-The folowing statement is true. The previous statement is false.-+-+-+
They were supposed to be the good guys, what the hell happend! Time to boycott yet another company. Good thing id has that whole MS hatred thing...oh, and money, lots and lots of money. And to think, I was going to buy ut2k4 on release day. To hell with that. I wonder if epic knows how many people love them for UT working on Linux. The RIAA could knock on my door tomorrow demanding millions of dollars for all the songs I can't produce a legal copy of, and it wouldn't come close to how much this sucks. Someone could shoot my family dead overnight and I would still be more pissed that epic has done this. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm off to steal a copy of Windows and every epic game I can find.
I seriously doubt that this announcement (which we don't have a source from either MS or Epic on yet) has anything at all to do with Linux.
Even if it did, I don't doubt that Epic would drop Linux clients in half a second if Microsoft decided to require it. Epic doesn't make money off of Linux.
Maybe it's just Enronb-money. If it's real, they better spend it before somebody else does
So you won't see a Linux UT2005 client, well, very few people use that particular client, so I'm sure it won't effect sales too much. But what about the server? As it stands, Linux runs 85% of UT2003 servers. Not having a linux server will diminish the product many times more than not having a linux client.
From the article: "Microsoft will publish "several" future Epic projects -- as yet unnamed projects -- exclusively for Xbox and Windows ." (my emphasis). Not "XBox and PC", which could have given leeway in the OS department. No, this would be an appropriate point to say fare-thee-well to Linux clients of any future Epic games. Dropping linux servers is less likely, though Microsoft would probably pressure Epic to drop them as well.
Atari IS Epic Games
Epic Games owns them and released Unreal Tournament in North America under the Atari name because it is more well known. I wouldn't expect that this would change just because of this deal.
When there aren't coming games anymore from Epic because of the deal with MS to Linux, so be it.
Those games will be (i think) DRM enabled and when you don't have DRM enabled on your linux box you can't play/serve them.
Time for something else.