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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.
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.
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!
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?
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.
No, Atari is NOT epic games... Atari used to be called infogrames. They are nothing but publisher...and microsoft took over their gig...