Epic Games Believes Free-to-Play Global Games Are the Future

Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney has talked about the future of the gaming industry and, after revealing that Infinity Blade is actually his company’s most profitable title, emphasized the role of free-to-play games that are available across multiple platforms all over the world.

Epic Games is one of the largest independent game studios out there and is well-known not just for franchises like Gears of War but also for the hugely popular Unreal Engine technology, which powers all sorts of different experiences, from blockbuster games to army simulators.

Now, in the midst of hyping up the upcoming Unreal Engine 4 tech, Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney has talked to Gamasutra during the Game Developers Conference in Taipei about the future of the game’s industry.

Sweeney opened up with an interesting factoid, saying that Infinity Blade, the mobile game for iOS platforms was actually the studio’s most profitable venture, even bigger than Gears of War.

"The most profitable game we've ever made, in terms of man years invested versus revenue, is actually Infinity Blade. It's more profitable than Gears of War," the Epic CEO said.

As such, mobile games and platforms will begin to play a bigger and bigger role in terms of gaming.

"We expect DirectX technology to be widely available on these mobile devices in the next few years," he added. "We're also seeing an interesting thing happen in terms of the overall development pattern globally. These platforms are rapidly converging, with a set of common capabilities. The lowest end device [the iPad 2] is still a DirectX 9 device!"

As a consequence, with the Unreal Engine 4, Epic’s strategy is to bring the technology on all platforms, from the PC and consoles to mobile devices and even web browsers.

In terms of actual games, Sweeney believes that free-to-play experiences will begin to draw in more and more people largely because they can appeal to all types of gamers from all over the world.

"All these western developers spending 30 million to develop these games for dedicated consoles - all of these companies are going to be invading the Asian markets within the next five years or so," he added, "and they'll be free to play, worldwide, global products. ... The only way to survive is to go global."

"The game industry is the most exciting one on earth," he concluded. "We've seen unprecedented change, just in our lifetimes. It's an unprecedented amount of change, and also opportunity."

Sweeney’s thoughts are echoed by quite a lot of other studios and publishers, so it’s going to be interesting to see what new types of games will be launched in the future.

Via: Epic Games Believes Free-to-Play Global Games Are the Future