Mike Capps On The Game Biz

[hal]

Epic Games' top guy, Mike Capps, talks with Wired about marketing, original IPs, and just about every other aspect of the gaming business. Here he discusses the separation of 'church' and 'state' in game development.

Wired: One of the main themes I'm seeing at this DICE is the idea that it's in a company's best interests to keep the suits, the corporate owners, away from the talent, the development teams. What do you think about that?

Mike Capps: I think it's crazy. Because talent without focus on business is a really, really dangerous thing. Blizzard is a great example. I don't know how they've been so successful and as huge as they have. But to throw away a game three times. That's not necessarily something to be proud of in perhaps your methodology so much as that somebody somewhere up high has the willingness to say, "You know, it's not working." That's very different from saying you're producing efficiently. Does that make sense?

 

[Sir_Brizz]

Hahahaha! This is the guy that didn't want to keep working on Gears Multiplayer?

 

[Lethargy]

I really hope I'm misunderstanding that quote.

 

[T2A`]

Epic is f**king retarded. It's like he's talking about his own company and games.

 

[Miko]

Clearly his brain is somewhere else compared to where the rest of Epic is.

 

[EvenDarkerBOB]

I fail to find a link.

 

[kafros]

If he really looks up to Blizzard, maybe next time he could beta test until he got what gamers wanted.

This is Blizzard's strength. Do public betas of a 'finished'(by competitors standards) product, until they get it right (right = what the majority of gamers want)

 

[r1esG0]

seriously we need a link to the full interview

 

[madspacemarinemustdie]

http://blog.wired.com/games/2008/02/las-vegas----be.html

 

[MonsOlympus]

Actually I found it wierd he mentioned starcraft when that warcraft adventure game and all that kept surfacing then suddenly we got hit with warcraft 3 followed by world of warcraft. Pretty much at that point I think it was pure concept coming from the cinematic team.

http://blog.wired.com/games/2008/02/las-vegas----be.html

Its pretty obvious to me where Epic is heading with UT3 on 360 then possbily onto Gears 2, their new little baby. I just hope Epic doesnt forget about Unreal because he says in this interview UT is an offshoot, I guess UC would be the offshoot of the offshoot.

I can understand Epic wanting to do games they enjoy making but I do think Gears got in the way of UT's development/production on more than one occasion so its hardly fair in comparison. Then again I guess one could say originally that UT2k3/4 got in the way of Gears coming to light sooner, not that it turned out all bad.

UC2 wasnt all bad either, sure it might have taken a niche game and made it even more so but there was enough new stuff in this rendition to warrant the name. Sequels will always have a higher bar to live up to so if Epic is moving towards either Unreal 3 or Gears 2, realize that either way you have big shoes to fill. Maybe they are going to take another gamble on original IP, perhaps a good thing if original IP's are gonna pay off like Unreal and Gears.

Hey maybe Im just holdin out hope we'll get an Unreal 3 when Epic is ready, it'd be the first Unreal game (without the Tournament or Championship) to have Epic's logo only perhaps, since the original. It'd perhaps give Epic a chance to get away from the tournament like they seemed to want from looking at the UT3 SP.

Good interview though with some good information.

 

[elmuerte]

I'd also like an real SP Unreal game. Unreal 1 was simply great, Unreal 2 was ok'ish. I've never been a big fan of the tournament games.

 

[Beelzebud (Satanas)]

I've been saying it for quite some time but here it goes again:

Mike Capps is the reason Epic has become what it is. He puts all the focus on making money, and none on making fun games.

I've read similar quotes from him about how he runs things at Epic. It's not hard to see why UT3 turned out the way it did, or that they put all their focus on consoles.

With this guy at the helm they're more worried about winning awards for Businessmen of the Year instead of Game of the Year.

 

[toniglandyl]

Doing a sequel to a game that did really, really well. That's an idea, you should look into that.

We've done an Unreal sequel or two.

WTF ?

Is that the bottom line? If we can't make the game that has the potential to sell X units, we're not making it?

Wow. We haven't had to have that level of conversation yet. That hard discussion — but, you know, Gears was such a bet for us. It's crazy to say it now, but it was a huge bet because we basically said we're going to stop making Unreal. The only reason we kept making Unreal was because Epic had shopped it out to my company, Scion Studios, and then we merged the two together they became two teams.

this sure makes unreal fans happy

Is Mr.Capps at least aware of what Epic does ?

 

[WarTourist]

Is Mr.Capps at least aware of what Epic does ?

He's talking about prior to the Epic/Scion merger. Originally the next UT was going to be done by Scion and Gears was going to be done by Epic. In that sense Epic wasn't going to be working on another Unreal game for a while.

 

[Raynor.Z]

 

[Go&nd]

I'm not the sort who likes to jump into a forum to flame people, but I have to admit, this interview sure makes Dr. Capps look foolish. I cringed or slapped my forehead several times while wading through this embarrassing interview.

 

[toniglandyl]

He's talking about prior to the Epic/Scion merger. Originally the next UT was going to be done by Scion and Gears was going to be done by Epic. In that sense Epic wasn't going to be working on another Unreal game for a while.

First of all, thanks for the Reply, but I'm still a bit sad about knowing that EPIC lost the feel of the thrill for the unreal universe I have. We've visited one planet, that planet had creative concepts, a simple yet immersive alien wildlife, saving nalis while saving our own ass.
Sure gears a new and original concept that deserves the attention it has. I always feel something fuzzy when creating a character in a pen&paper game, and having a whole new universe to use must bring the same feeling.

I'd understand if you said "unreal is now over", the game has lived, and you want to spend 100% of your time on something new which would probably be a great new franchise for Epic followers.
But you haven't, and I'm still waiting to discover more planets and more original aliens, more "WTF is going on ? I wanna get out of here !" moments. Skaarj invading mankind was the next logical step (UT2004), and now necris invaded earth.
Unreal 3 being on the necris homeland could be great ! all the artistic possibilities, nano-black infected vegetation, animals, or even 100% nano-black life forms ! seeing some necrification process would be awesome too (no need to remake the Quake 4 scene though) !

I'm sure you feel even closer to this than I, so how can you not want to feel that little alien baby of a game growing in your hard drives ?

I'm sure you're already very very busy with what you're already doing, and I'm not criticizing you, it's just that knowing that you abandoned an Unreal sequel sure disturbs me

 

[Selerox]

1998-2000, the heyday Epic will never get back...

Just when you thought Epic couldn't quite lose the plot any more...

What the hell happened to the developer of 9 years ago?

 

[WarTourist]

it's just that knowing that you abandoned an Unreal sequel sure disturbs me

You're reading WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY too much into that. He's talking about teams, not titles. Unreal wasn't over when Legend did Unreal 2, nor was UT2003 when DE did it.

As a one team company (pre-merger) Epic wanted to try something new with Gears. As a two team company (post-merger) we got the best of both worlds, a new franchise and the one that attracted us all to Epic in the first place.

 

[Angel_Mapper]

Wired: One of the main themes I'm seeing at this DICE is the idea that it's in a company's best interests to keep the suits, the corporate owners, away from the talent, the development teams. What do you think about that?

Mike Capps: I think it's crazy. Because talent without focus on business is a really, really dangerous thing. Blizzard is a great example. I don't know how they've been so successful and as huge as they have. But to throw away a game three times. That's not necessarily something to be proud of in perhaps your methodology so much as that somebody somewhere up high has the willingness to say, "You know, it's not working." That's very different from saying you're producing efficiently. Does that make sense?

I completely fail to understand what he's trying to say here. It's the Producer's job to stay in between the suits and the talent. Is he saying the suits should be the Producers?