mark-rein posts

This weekend we wrote about how indie game developer Cliff Harris, the one man team behind Positech Games went on a rant on his blog site after Epic Games VP Mark Rein interrupted a panel at last week's Develop conference on indie games that Harris was a part of. Now the Develop web site has posted up an apology from Rein which he has sent to Harris via email.

In short, Rein states, "It was completely rude of me to interrupt your panel with my opinion no matter how well intentioned." He added, "But there's no excuse for bad manners. You called me on it and it made me realize that it is a behavior I need to try and change for these types of events in the future."

So apparently the Develop conference in the UK this week turned into a lot of name calling. We had Double Fine's founder Tim Schafer call Activision CEO Bobby Kotick a "total prick" and a "dick". Now Cliff Harris, the one man developer and head of Positech Games (maker of among other titles Gratuitous Space Battles) is calling Epic Games' VP Mark Rein a "jerk" on his blog site.

Why the hostility? Harris said that in a Develop panel on indie games this week he mentioned how "someone can email you as an indie dev, and you can reply personally back to that potential customer, and hopefully, that way you have converted that guy to buying the game." Harris then claims Rein started talking from the front row of the audience. Harris said Rein "said something to the effect of 'one guy? who cares, that's a waste of time'." Harris then goes on a lengthy rant against both Rein and Epic Games as whole, ending with, " ... Triple-A studio bosses trying to lecture me on how to communicate better with gamers? F*** off."

We've emailed Rein to get his side of the story. In the meantime his team mate, Epic Games designer Cliff Bleszinski has posted up a couple of statements on his Twitter page. In one he states, "I've personally seen Mark Rein reply to tons of random people who email him. He blind copies me *constantly*." Another statement says, "I haven't spoken with Mark today, but I'd wager he thought the comment was silly that only indy devs reply or interact to customers." Harris himself "tweeted" that, "I got a reply from (Epic Games programmer) Tim Sweeny (sic), which is kind of cool, and I hope just draws a line under it so everyone can just make games now :D" So maybe this is all under the bridge now.

[Via Blue's News]

In an interview with Develop, Silicon Knights president Denis Dyack broke his silence regarding the legal battle his company is tangled in with developer Epic Games.

"The trial is proceeding, we feel really good about our claims, and we're hopeful that justice will be done," Dyack commented to Develop. "We all feel really strongly that they have defrauded us, and a major portion of the industry."

In July 2007, Silicon Knights filled a lawsuit against Epic Games - developers of Gears of War - alleging that the developer's Unreal Engine 3 code was inadequate and has "caused serious damage to not only Silicon Knights, but a number of other developers in the industry," as reported by GameDaily. In August of the same year, Epic Games filled a counterclaim stating that Silicon Knights had copied its technology when a new engine was developed for Too Human.

It appears the heated battle rages on and considering the amount of licensees Epic Games has for its Unreal Engine 3 tool set the outcome could largely impact the games industry.

[via GameDaily]

UPDATE: To clarify, Reins believes that the insinuation that stereoscopic 'true 3D' technology is just now being researched is dumb. The tech, as he explains in the quote found below, has been in use for quite a while.

GamesIndustry.biz recently sat down with Epic Games president Mark Rein to discuss the forthcoming Gears of War 2, as well as talk a bit of tech regarding game industry trends and dalliances. On the topic of whether 3D stereoscopic technology is currently being explored, Rein said simply, "That's dumb."

Expanding, Rein said that such technology is already in use, but needs some tweaking before it can gain mainstream acceptance. "I have a 3D monitor sitting in my office and stereoscopic has worked on Unreal for a long time. In fact one of the guys pushing stereoscopic sent me the monitor, he said, 'Your games are great on these monitors,' so he sent me one. So Unreal works fine on stereoscopic, it's just you've got to change out your screens to use it - that's a big accessory."

Gamasutra recently caught up with Epic Games vice president Mark Rein to discuss a number of topics, including the sate of the company and its popular Unreal Engine 3 technology.

When asked whether he feels an engine can influence a design -- specifically, whether he feels developers who have licensed UE3 are using Gears of War's exact cover system -- Rein doesn't "think that's an engine thing. We've seen games that don't use our engine use a very similar cover system to us. I think it's something that we luckily stumbled upon that I'm sure we stole from somebody else, and it turns out to be something people really like and it caught on."

Rein believes that games will always build on trends established by predecessors, and that's just fine with him. "That's just a natural evolution of this industry, and many industries. Pretty much any industry, for that matter. That's okay."

Head over to Gamasutra to read the full interview.

Eurogamer's Kristan Reed followed up on Epic Games' recent flurry of XBox 360 Unreal Tournament 3 announcements by speaking with VP Mark Rein yesterday. They covered a wide variety of Epic-related topics. Not the least of those: speculation about a third single-player title in the Unreal franchise.

"I'm sure that at some point in our future we will make another single-player, story-driven Unreal game," said Rein. "I'm sure at some point there will be one. There are no plans to do one today." So it's coming, but not any time soon! Other info from the interview: there are no specific plans to release the 360 exclusive content on the PC but "who knows," more downloadable content is on the way, Epic is working on new IPs, and Gears of War 2 is (of course) going to be awesome.

The rest of the interview covered subjects related exclusively to the Epic's console work.

Mark Rein is a man you either love... or love to hate. Never one to mince words, the vice president of Epic Games recently chatted it up with the folks at CVG about Unreal Tournament III for the Xbox 360, Unreal Engine 4, and the future of PC gaming. We'd mention that what he had to say will shock you, but come on... we're talking about Mark Rein here. Nothing he says should shock anyone by now. Personally, we here at Big Download love him for that.

Since we are a PC gaming site we won't much mention the 360 port, but if you're an Xbox player jonesing for unreal fragging -- you'll want to check out the interview for some interesting nuggets o' knowledge. Besides... the good stuff is in his Nostradamus like prediction of PC gaming's future.