Kotaku: mike capps

Epic Games Expands To Tokyo, Teases "Secret Plans" For Studio

Michael McWhertor — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 23:30:00 MDT

Epic Games president Mike Capps announced at his Tokyo Game Show panel today that the Gears of War and Unreal Engine developer is expanding its empire into Japan. It may also have grander plans for Epic Games Japan.

Capps said that the Tokyo office would focus "mostly [on] technical support and sales support," with Epic Games having an "expectation of much closer relationships with Japanese studios." But, after praising the Japanese development community as one of the strongest in the world, he said "we may have secret plans to hire some Japanese game developers too."

Capps said that publisher/developer Square Enix—which licensed Epic's game engine for The Last Remnant—embedded a handful of its developers at the company's Raleigh headquarters to study Epic's processes. Epic later returned the favor, sending some of its staff to Square Enix to support the dev team. Capps said that the Unreal Engine team's size—about 20 people—prohibits the team from making visits like that frequently, something that the Tokyo based office aims to rectify.

Epic currently has an office in Seoul, Korea to handle similar support efforts.

How'd You Like Your Game Ending to Be DLC?

Owen Good — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 15:00:00 MST

Downloadable content as a weapon against second-hand resales is, nothing new, but Epic's Mike Capps has heard other ideas for how it can be used with devastating effect. If you hated the idea of DLC weapons in Bad Company, well, you're really going to hate this.

“I’ve talked to some developers who are saying ‘If you want to fight the final boss you go online and pay USD 20, but if you bought the retail version you got it for free’. We don’t make any money when someone rents it, and we don’t make any money when someone buys it used - way more than twice as many people played Gears than bought it.”

That would reduce everything but a retail sale to a demo, in my view. This doesn't sound like Capps specifically advocating such a bastard-ass move. But these two sides — developers and retailer/resellers — need to arrive at some sort of truce or else the only ones who'll get screwed are the gamers.

I can't imagine the Amazon and Metacritic reviews for such a game. It would make the Spore DRM backlash look like a polite disagreement. Seriously, games industry, you want to start spewing douchewater like the RIAA, go for it. They can tell you what it's done for their sales.

Capps: We Really Need to Make Strides Against the Secondhand Market [Videogaming247, via Bingegamer]

Epic Prez Says Xbox Winning Online Battle With "Cool Stuff"

Michael McWhertor — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 17:40:00 MST

Epic Games president and connoisseur of "cool stuff" Mike Capps believes that Microsoft is winning the battle for online dominance, partly because of the soon-to-launch New Xbox Experience. Capps tells GamesIndustry.biz that the Xbox 360's expansion of the "Live presence" and, in particular, the streaming of Netflix content are what's putting Microsoft in the "winning" position.

Clearly, Mr. Capps has never experienced the thrill of reading headlines while folding proteins in Life With PlayStation! And those Mii parades? Painfully hip.

Capps tempers his enthusiasm for Microsoft's cool factor when it comes to promoting Xbox Live Arcade games. On the subject of his company's recently acquired Chair Entertainment, Capps notes "there's no marketing path, there's no PR path for a really sharp 20 dollar Live Arcade game," something that lead to Undertow for XBLA being financially unsuccessful.

Not sure there's any easy solution to the marketing of online titles, whether they be on Live, PlayStation Network or WiiWare. I'm certainly not looking forward to the future of more invasive DLC marketing, as I fully expect pop-up ads to start invading my regular game playing at some point.

Certainly an Undertow demo attached to a copy of Gears of War 2 wouldn't hurt...

Epic: Microsoft is "winning" online battle [GamesIndustry.biz]

Epic Boss: Lower Scores for PC GoW are "bullshit"

Owen Good — Sat, 09 Aug 2008 11:00:00 MDT

A month later, E3 quotes, comments and tidbits are still coming out in dribs and drabs. Here's one: Outspoken Epic honcho Mike Capps, in a lengthy video interview elsewhere, is a bit pissed at the fact reviewers hated on Gears of War for the PC.

"Because what we did was take a great game, Gears of War 1 for Xbox 360, made it run at higher resolutions and added three new hours of really good gameplay and it got lower reviews. I think that’s bullshit, and I don’t understand it. I can’t figure out what it is."

Voodoo Extreme, in the post and the comments, puts forth a fine explanation: 1) The game had bugs at the outset that needed patches. 2) Multiplayer matchmaking via Windows Live was terrible, should be better now that they've done away with the gold/silver distinction.

But bottom line, as one commenter points out ,it's probably the fact that it's not a simultaneous release with the 360 title, not even close. Because when reviewers go checking out a port, if the new-and-better isn't slap-you-in-the-face obvious, they're probably going to spot what doesn't work and harp on it.

It does make me wonder what kind of reviews we'll see for Grand Theft Auto IV for the PC.

Lower Review Scores for Gears PC is “Bullshit,” Says Capps [Videogaming247, via Voodoo Extreme]

Epic Games Exploring New IPs Through Comic Books

Michael McWhertor — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 18:00:22 MDT

Mike Capps, el presidente of Epic Games, recently spoke at the Casual Connect conference in Seattle, saying that his company had lost some of its "nimbleness" as a blockbuster producing studio. With massive titles like Gears of War and Unreal Tournament on its plate, its looking to explore new franchises on the cheap, specifically through comic books.

Develop reports that Capps also expressed plans to utilize the recently purchased Chair Entertainment to increase its stable of intellectual property. “We want to learn from casual games," he's quoted as saying, telling casual game developers on hand "we’re really jealous of the things you do and we’re going to steal all your ideas.”

He then chainsawed them all in half and took their brains back to Epic Games science labs for further study.

Epic Games looks to comic books for building new IP [Develop]

Epic Preps Unreal Engine 4 For "Next Console Generation"

Leigh Alexander — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 09:40:00 MDT

Epic president Mike Capps guesses the next console generation will begin anywhere between 2012 and 2018 — and when it does, Unreal Engine 4 will be already waiting for it. At least, that's what Capps told an audience Microsoft's Gamefest 2008 in Seattle this week, according to a Gamasutra report.

Said Capps:

"We've got Unreal [Engine] 4 in production right now... it's going to be in the next console generation - our rough guess is 2012 [to] 2018."

Tim Sweeney also has a guess about what the platforms will be at that time, and in what order Epic will address them:

"Version 4 will exclusively target the next console generation, Microsoft's successor for the Xbox 360, Sony's successor for the Playstation 3 - and if Nintendo ships a machine with similar hardware specs, then that also. PCs will follow after that."

Epic's Capps: Unreal Engine 4 Due For 'Next Console Generation' [Gamasutra]

Why The Chainsaw Gun Exists (Boring Edition)

Brian Ashcraft — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 07:00:27 MDT

Gun plus chainsaw? There must be more to that than simply "looks cool." There is! Epics president Mike Capps says while he was originally against the idea, he told a Comic Con panel:

The reason [it] exists is because our characters are so bloody expensive to draw...

Meaning that they have more detail close-up than say Halo characters. Fair enough! Though we prefer "looks cool." Elsewhere Capps says the sequel have battles that feel more massive in scale. Hope he doesn't have another dry explanation for that.
Gears of War 2 Details [GameSpy via videogaming247]

Epic's Mike Capps Reiterates Hate on Wii

ogood — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 08:00:00 MDT

In an interview with IGN Saturday at the New York Comic-Con, the Epic Games president Mike Capps lays down the law: No Wii game is ever forthcoming from his company. The reason? "We go forward, not back." Apparently the Wii is not next-gen to him.

I'm not gonna poke the snake of what-is and what-ain't next-gen. Let Capps do that for himself:

It's a virus where you buy it and you play it with your friends and they're like, "Oh my God that's so cool, I'm gonna go buy it." So you stop playing it after two months, but they buy it and they stop playing it after two months but they've showed it to someone else who then go out and buy it and so on. Everyone I know bought one and nobody turns it on. Obviously there's a class of people who really love it and enjoy it and are getting into the games but I'm still waiting for that one game that makes me play it.

Now, granted, the Wii comes in for cutesy-poo abuse from hardcore gamers as the day is long. And from the tone of the titles and the console, it's hard to imagine Gears of War sequel using the Wiimote (I own neither, just assuming). But it's not like Wii titles put up marginal sales figures. That doesn't mean every developer has to start building a title, pronto. But neither does it mandate a developer totally shut the door on the industry's top-selling console if he's not. Just sayin'.

IGN has the entire interview, if you're inclined. Megatonik sifted out the good parts and posted on it, too.

NYCC '08: Talking Gears 2 and So Much More [IGN, thanks Megatonik]

Gears of War Almost Ditched Multiplayer

Mark Wilson — Mon, 29 Oct 2007 12:20:28 MDT

Mike Capps, President of Epic Games, revealed two horrible judgments that he almost made regarding Gears of War. The first regarded multiplayer:

I was going to cut multiplayer from Gears because I thought it wasn't coming together fast enough...The day before E3 I'm like "no guys, it's not pulling together". And they made it, they pulled it together, and then we won every award.

But maybe Gears multiplayer is only good because he almost cut it. Oohh, deep, we know. But Capps had another opinion that was just plain wrong.

So, you know I thought the Mad World music, for the commercial that's won so many awards, I thought it was stupid; I was like "what are you thinking? Nobody knows Donnie Darko any more.

No, now people just know Mad World as the song from the awesome Gears of War trailer.

But apparently it's a good thing nobody actually listens to this guy.

Mike Capps, Epic Games president, says he was going to cut multiplayer from Gears of War [pro-g]