Monday, February 21, 2000

Counterbattery fire -- 8:11 pm CST, Update by The Master

Well, I hope Jason Hall has his shield up, 'cause here comes some SERIOUS artillary fire. Tim Sweeney updated the Unreal Technology Page with some commentary on the Jason Hall interview in my earlier posting (story). Here's a snip for good measure:

Jason's Claim: Competing with us at this point is going to be extremely expensive and most of our "competitors" aren't specifically focused on engine licensing.

Tim's Response: There are two sides to Epic's business: game development and licensing. It's just the same with Monolith; they have their game subsidiary and their licensing subsidiary. Jason is CEO of both divisions, correct, Jason? So if Monolith were to exit the game business to focus only on licensing, then Jason's claim of singular focus would be legitimate. But, as it is, it's just baseless posturing. We both make games and engines.

The primary difference isn't focus, it's that Epic has a successful track record of shipping products in both markets, while Monolith has a spotty record with their own LithTech games and no track record yet shipping licensed games.

Therefore, Jason claims that track record is unimportant. But, isn't that a ludicrous and untenable position? Let's try to pitch it: "trust us and license our huge, complex 100,000-line piece of software -- even though our lead programmer left, and the two projects we attempted with it yielded a dud and a sub-150K seller. And don't worry about track record; the fact that Unreal sold a million isn't any indication that their engine is more suitable for developing hit games".

Yeah, whatever. The poetic justice is that any developer who buys into that philosophy, has to live with its ramifications.

News for 02/21/2000

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