The Past, Present and Future of Epic Games

If you dig video game history, then one article you must check out is one posted at Gamasutra just the other day. It features a huge interview with legend Tim Sweeney, founder of Epic. If you grew up with a PC in the late 80’s / early 90’s, it’s likely that you’ve played a game by Epic MegaGames, and if so, then you were already playing games from the company before even the likes of Unreal saw the light of day.

Three specific games mentioned in the article, Jill of the Jungle, Epic Pinball and Jazz Jackrabbit are games I hold close to my heart, as I played them over and over growing up, just like some titles rom Apogee, as I mentioned in an article a few weeks ago. Tim was the lone founder of Epic MegaGames, now Epic Games, and carries a rich history behind him, and most, if not all, is tackled here.

Familiar with ZZT? It was Tim’s first creation, which actually had its origins as a text editor. He saw the potential, and built not only a game out of it, but also an editor… one of the first. Oh, and if you are confused as to whether ZZT stands for anything, it doesn’t. Tim sneakily named it that so that his creation would appear at the bottom of all BBS’ (many people scrolled to the bottom since the beginning was full of nonsense).

I can’t even tap the base of what’s revealed in this lengthy interview in a simple news post, so just take my word for it and read it. You may gain a newfound respect for the company (or even go back and play the classics!).

“That’s kind of a common pattern in everything I do. One minute I’m completely on my own and I think, ‘Wow, I’m a genius, I can’t believe this idea nobody else had!’ And then you look at the references on it, and it turns out that a hundred other people have done the same things in the 1980s. And then you look, and you get your additional ideas from those. Between invention and stealing, you come up with a really good combination of ideas. “