Criterion's Renderware engine used to be the videogames development platform. It powered series like Grand Theft Auto, Burnout, Mortal Kombat, Sonic the Hedgehog, and Tony Hawk's Pro Skate. More recently, games like Crackdown and Battlefield 2 took Renderware to its limits.

These days, everyone's all about the Unreal Engine 3. It seems we can't go a week without a new publisher licensing Epic Games' tech. Sega, Capcom, Activision, and Square-Enix are all on board. Even Electronic Arts is a licensee—odd because it owns Renderware. So what happened to dear old Renderware? EA's William "Bing" Gordon told Gamasutra:

Renderware didn't get the next-gen parts that we needed. We actually underestimated Epic early on. They told us, "We're going to do this, this, and this," and we thought, "Eh, it's going to be kind of hard." We also overestimated our team, then we looked up three months, six months, and nine months later and said, "Whoops, we underestimated Epic. Again. And overestimated our own team."

Epic delivers! For more from Bing Gordon, don't miss the rest of the interview. He answers questions on the potential purchase of Ubisoft, why EA passed on the Dreamcast, and taking a risk on Spore. Michael McWhertor

Bing There, Done That: EA's CCO Talks... Everything [Gamasutra]