Epic Games is “Targeting the PC Again”

Epic Games president Mike Capps says five new games are coming, but don’t expect blockbusters like Gears of War.

With all the news erupting out of Gamescom 2011, it’s easy to forget that GDC Europe is happening concurrently. Mike Capps, president of Epic Games, spoke at the convention, teasing new titles coming down the studio’s pipeline.

Capps revealed no specifics, though he did speak vaguely about the size of the projects. He also added that he was “glad to be targeting the PC again as a primary platform, and not just for ports.”

“At Epic we didn’t multiply the studio size by five when we started working on these multiple projects, so you can make some assumptions about the size of those projects,” Capps said.

This shouldn’t be a cause for alarm, however. Through successful titles like Shadow Complex for XBLA and Infinity Blade for iOS, Epic has already proved it can thrive outside of a AAA environment.

Capps added this switch to smaller-sized games is necessary to counter the heightened risk level of modern game development.

“Everyone knows the middle class is disappearing from the console business. Gears of War, I hope will do really well, but a pretty good game doesn’t make its money back anymore,” Capps said. “A game like Homefront sells a couple of million copies and they close the studio, right? That’s not enough anymore. That’s pretty depressing. You don’t want to see what happens to an industry where it’s Call of Duty, Halo and Gears and no-one else has enough money to make any games anymore. That’s not a fun industry.”

“I can’t bet my entire company every time I make a game,” Capps concluded. “That’s a really dangerous business.”

Source: Gamesindustry