17-Feb-2006 Epic Games' ever ebullient VP talks state of the industry, 360, PS3 and Revolution, plus the latest word on Unreal Engine 4!
Epic's vice president Mark Rein is a man never short of an opinion or two. Chief evangelist for Epic's Unreal Engine 3, Rein moves through the heart of the games industry bridging publishers, developers and platform holders as well as spearheading Epic's thrust into the next generation - whilst also sounding the charge for two of Epic's own splendid games: Unreal Tournament 2007 and the hotly anticipated Gears of War
Always one of our favourite interviewees, we managed to catch up with Mark Rein during his recent visit to London and draw out his always entertaining opinions and expertise on numerous subjects. Topics as diverse as the 360 launch, what it's like developing for the PS3, what Sony might aim for in its online service, and even the latest word on Epic's far flung future project for the next next generation, Unreal Engine 4, were covered.
Brevity being the soul of wit and all that, we'll not burble on any more but thrust you straight into the throbbing heart of Mr Rein's pronouncements... over to you, Mark.
So how are things shaping up at Epic at the moment?
Mark Rein: Yeah, things are really busy at the moment, we're doing a lot of work on Unreal Engine 3 and we've got Gears of War in development - and of course Unreal Tournament 2007, so we're working really hard.
We saw you were recruiting again recently?
Mark Rein: Yeah, we're constantly recruiting, but now and then you have to turn the volume up a bit to remind people, "Hey you talented people out there, we're looking for you." We've just created a new position which is lead engine programmer and we've never really had anyone in that position in the past, responsible for all the programming of the engine. As the engine team gets to a certain size, that management role gets more important and we got some very good applicants.
You mentioned those two key titles there. How's work going on them?
Mark Rein: Very well. Both games are a lot of fun. The beautiful thing with Unreal Tournament is the way we build it, it's gameplay first; by bringing up levels in a very unfinished state we're able to run around and navigate them and put in all the gameplay elements, then see how much fun they are before we go to the detailed step of decorating them and making everything beautiful. We have quite a few levels up and playable now. We're prototyping the new game types, we have some great new vehicles, we have some cool new weapons - that's how UT goes and it's going well. Come see us at E3 [winks].
And of course the other major title is Gears of War. How's work progressing with that title? We've been keeping a real close eye on that one.
Mark Rein: Cliffy B and the whole team is doing very well. The game is looking spectacular of course as everyone expects, but more importantly, we've got some really great AI now. We've recently been doing some multiplayer play tests and that's always fun, even if I'm getting my butt kicked as usual. Mark Rein equals target practice!
I think people are going to be pretty excited about Gears. We've tried very hard to let excitement ebb and flow naturally, without trying to over hype the game. What we want to do is not reveal a lot of details about the gameplay or the story because it's one of these intensive single-player driven stories. I think if you reveal too much about that you take away the mystery and the fun for the gamer. So we've shielded it to an extent and said, 'Here's a pretty screenshot, don't ask too many questions'.
A lot of games give away the story even sometimes in screenshots. We definitely don't want to be one of those games and I think people will be really surprised when they see some of the elements of the game that haven't been discussed or shown.
Weapons are one example. Because the game's generated so much excitement, based on how beautiful it looks and a couple of the trailers we've shown, we've been able to pretty much keep the weapons under wraps. Everybody's seen the three or four guns and some grenades and things that we've shown. We will gradually reveal more and more but the idea's not to reveal everything.
The multiplayer testing sounds intriguing though? We haven't heard too much about that before.
Mark Rein: Oh yeah, it's a lot of fun. The multiplayer has - well I don't want to pigeon hole it by saying it has a Counter-Strike feel to it - but imagine a more tactical Counter-Strike, where team work is absolutely essential, where cover is absolutely essential and it's just a lot of fun. We've had eight-player matches, they go on for a long time and everyone's really enjoying testing them out.
Of course you're now considered one of the premier next-gen engine developers in the world. How is work on Unreal Engine 3 developing?
Mark Rein: Our license program is going really well, but more importantly engine development is going extremely well. We've expanded the team recently and just added another tools developer. Tools are really the cornerstone of Unreal Engine 3 and we're now working on the multi-threaded renderer which is a vast performance improvement over where we've been in the past and an absolute necessity to take advantage of PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. We will probably have that in a very early showable form at GDC and we should deliver to licensees soon thereafter.
Unfortunately, right now the renderer is at the stage where we're making a big change to it, we can't show little pieces of it, it has to all be done and then you have to put the content back in. So we figure sometime after GDC, we're gonna be pretty much done in the production stage. We are obviously continuing work on the other pieces of the engine and it's going well.
As a company do you ever feel a tension between being an engine developer and a games maker? Is there ever any conflict or do you always see yourselves going forward on both tracks?
Mark Rein: Oh, good question. The only conflict that happens in that situation really is that the pressure with the engine is not just to satisfy ourselves into making a great game and not just to satisfy our publisher, but there's a lot people who are dependant on the technology. So if there's any tension there it may be that sometimes we over-compensate on the engine side by borrowing resources from the games team. The crucial thing is to make sure the important features are done, not just when they're needed by us, but also by our customers. So it's an internally satisfying situation as well when we're able to do that.
But I think we're well positioned. I don't think it's possible to be a really good engine provider and not be a consumer of your own work. I think that's a fallacy, the idea that you can create a company that never puts these things into practicable motion and never really finds out how well the engine runs or what kind of performance is needed for real games, for shipping the titles.
I don't ever really see us as being a separate engine company from a games company, I think those two are very well intertwined. We often tell people, 'We put in the features that are important to our games', because that way we know that they work, we know that they're getting torture tested, that our developers are using them every day and that they're getting full attention. We know when it comes time to ship, our publisher will see our entire set of features which includes what we do for licensees. So it gives us an advantage. We try also to maintain an engine which is extensible for licensees.
Saying that, between our two games, which are more different than people realise, we're not going to exercise every last function needed by developers. We'll certainly never exercise every last function we put in the engine, because we put them in for our own purposes. But there's certainly other functionalities that developers need for their specific titles that we don't have. Developers in some cases are certainly doing more to extend the engine than we have. The bottom line is: I don't think you can be an engine provider without being a very critical engine user and we're probably the most critical of all.
The next-gen's arrived now with Xbox 360. What kind of impact do you think that's made and how do you think Microsoft's launch has gone?
Mark Rein: I think the Xbox 360 launch has been extremely successful. Yeah they've struggled with getting the quantity of units out there and I think you could certainly have a much worse problem than that. But I think the quality of the launch titles was very good, probably the best I've seen of a launch console and I think the device is very good. I think they really nailed what they needed to have for this time frame and this generation.
As we've said in the past, the 360 turned out to be more powerful than our original estimates were, based on specifications and that's always a positive thing. The developers seem to be taking to it like crazy. You know, we talk to a lot of developers and the uptake of 360 is extremely high amongst developers. There's more excitement than I've seen in the past, for example, with Xbox one. So that's really good news.
I was at the XFest conference here in London yesterday and the organisers had to turn away 150 people, they just didn't have room. I think that's a really good sign, it's the sign of a console that's going to do very well and have a very active developer market. Xbox 360 certainly established that.
I think there's a very bright future ahead. Obviously we know what some of the second generation Xbox titles look like and they're really what users are expecting - or I should say, what users are hoping they'll see from Xbox 360. Those titles are coming and I think that's going to be extremely impressive.
This year should see the launch of PS3 - we hope anyway - and with Unreal Tourny being shown at last year's E3 as the first game on the system... What's your take on developing for the system compared to Xbox 360?
Mark Rein: The architectures of the two systems are relatively unique. The graphics parts have different philosophies and obviously the CPUs have different philosophies. We're finding the PlayStation 3 to be a really challenging development environment, just like Xbox 360 was when we really got into the meat of it. But ultimately I think it's going to deliver a very satisfying experience for the users. We like to think that our technology will help developers really take advantage of the system and put out some really spectacular games. We're pretty happy with the way things are going there.
There's a ton of speculation swirling around Sony's proposed PlayStation HUB service recently - do you think it needs to develop a Live-style service to really seize online this time around?
Mark Rein: First of all, let me say I think Xbox Live is fantastic and Microsoft has done an amazing job with it, as we're now seeing the numbers come through for conversion rates for Xbox Live Arcade and how many people have downloaded some of the games. [I'm] Really enjoying the Marketplace, really enjoying Xbox Live Arcade and I know they're going to do a lot of really cool things with it. This is only version one and it will morph over a relatively fast amount of time into a much better service.
Having said that, I don't think Sony necessarily has to replicate Xbox Live to be successful in online games. What they really need is some quite simple and rudimentary features to start with. They need server-browser capability. Unreal Tournament has had server-brower capabilities built in for years and years. If Sony never delivered any online components to us, we'd just use our own. It isn't rocket science, we're already doing it. What you do need is inter-game communication and that's what's great about Xbox, the ability to say "come join my game". It needs a friends service, maybe some sort of scoreboard facilities - but that's not essential, developers can create their own on the web.
With an open system you can take the user out to your web page and your scoreboards. It needs voice-over-IP which I think Sony's already talked about in their E3 presentation, with a video camera and headsets and things like that. I think everybody's expectation that they've got to build a big massive Xbox Live competitor to be successful... I don't think that's accurate, I think they just need a few components, which you can go out and buy from companies today anyway.
I'm not the slightest bit worried about how Sony will fare in online, they'll do just fine and they can take a couple of important baby steps and mandate a couple of technical requirements, that's what platform holders do. Then they can gradually update it over time. In a more open platform, it's very easy for them to put a browser-like scenario in the machine and send people off to the servers or services. They're more than capable of doing all that. For Sony, it's about services, not necessarily a service.
Moving onto Nintendo and its plans for the Revolution - what do you make of its approach? Is it a system you'd look to develop for?
Mark Rein: We're definitely interested in it and we're looking forward to seeing the specifications and where it sits in terms of graphical capability. We're interested in looking at it, we've spoken to Nintendo and expressed our interest.
Do you think these next-gen consoles could hasten the demise of the PC? Ever since we've been in the industry we seem to have been hearing about its death as a gaming platform
Mark Rein: The death of the PC is so ridiculous. The PC will never die! In fact, the PC is still a great entertainment platform. I've been playing Age of Empires III a lot lately and it's not a game you're ever going to play on a console. You need a keyboard and you need a mouse and it's a fantastic game and when you're playing it, it just rules your life. I don't see a doom and gloom scenario for the PC - in fact, I think the next-generation consoles are going to help the PC in terms of people are going to be building really high end, high quality content and the PC is going to be a natural place to put that content, in addition to the consoles.
I'm pretty excited about the future of the PC. At CES this year, Dell introduced the XPS 600 Renegade which had quad SLI! This is one hell of a machine, and this is only January and they were showing quad SLI and dual overclocked Pentium 4's and really fast memory, 10000 RPM serial hard disks...
We're sensing your excitement!
Mark Rein: [Laughs] Yeah [rubs hands together] - this is just an incredible machine and it's great to see one of the giants, Dell, really caring about PC gaming. That's going to really help and I got a chance to run the Unreal Engine demos on that machine with their beautiful 30 inch monitor and I tell you what, if you'd seen that, you'd say "PC gaming is alive and well!" We were running it beyond HD, it's like 2560 by 1600 resolution and it ran quite well. So the PC will not only continue to survive as a games machine, but it will continue to do well and continue to lead as an entertainment platform, because we can always buy bigger, badder, better PCs.
There's been talk of the PS3 not playing second-hand games and we know that's one of your particular bugbears - but are we going to move beyond a disk age?
Mark Rein: Well, if you ship games on disk and all you have to do is pop the disk into the console to play a game, I don't know how you prevent people from playing games. So I don't really think that will happen. You can take your disk from one machine to another and that's one of the basic tenets of console gaming, that's one of the advantages consoles have. They're going to try and erase that advantage with Windows Vista which is a good thing, we like fast loading, but as long as that's the way it works.
In future generations of consoles we'll probably see them without optical disks and you probably will download your games, you'll stream them down, maybe you'll buy them on a memory format or maybe you'll still have the disk but it will be a transport medium. I think Xbox Live Arcade is showing that there's an appetite for downloading games and putting them on your hard drive. It'll be a similar situation to iTunes where you authorise it on a couple of machines and you'll always be connected and tethered to the mothership through online.
We're already seeing it on PC gaming services like GameTab and things like that. They're quite successful and no-one seems to mind and it'll help combat piracy. Hopefully, we'll also see the price of games coming down, because we're eliminating a lot of the additional costs of delivering that game in your hands.
What do you make of the platform holders' intentions to help broaden the overall gaming market and bring in more casual players?
Mark Rein: Well, you have to have the hardcore, because you have to have someone who buys the console when it first comes out or else you never get the price down. So I don't really see that changing. Hardcore gamers are a sturdy bunch and we're constantly breeding more of them so I'm not too worried about that.
But anything that gets people interested in touching and playing with the machine... I think Microsoft touched on this last year in their E3 conference and anything that gets eyes on screens is a good thing for the games business. How you go about getting those people interested? Casual games are only one way. Using the console device to deliver different forms of entertainment would be another - using the console for things outside the realm of gaming, like video conferencing, or voice chat, those kind of things.
Those help people get comfortable with the machine and then it's a Trojan horse scenario: "Why don't you try a game? You've got the controller in your hand." Perhaps a little chess game in your video chat app you could play together? I saw an impressive demo of Microsoft's camera for Xbox 360 and there was a game playing with two players, and even while this guy was driving he could see a video of his buddy he was playing against superimposed on the screen. These are the ways we'll get more people interested in gaming.
What do you think are the main challenges and opportunities the industry faces over the next few years?
Mark Rein: For us the biggest thing and something hopefully - cross our fingers - we can contribute to is trying to alleviate the huge bottleneck of constructing the content. Next, trying to keep control in the hands of the most creative people - not just necessarily the people just building and constructing the code, but the architects and the designers and the people who have a vision and making sure we're making more entertaining products year to year, not just more products. I like to think we have a small little role in that in terms of what we're doing with our technology and I think the challenge is to just keep making fun games - new and exciting things that users haven't tried before or new executions on tried and true ideas we've had before. Those are always good ways to move forward.
Then - and I know it's not too popular to say this - but creating great graphics, really really stunning environments which just pull the user right in and make them think 'Wow I really am on this planet' or 'I am really am in this building' or 'I'm really riding this wave'. There's always the twin goals of making games more fun and making games more beautiful - maybe 'immsersive' is a better word than beautiful. Those challenges will continue indefinitely for more exciting experiences.
We couldn't let you go without mentioning Unreal Engine 4 - which was one of our biggest stories last year when we broke it at Leipzig. Anything more you can say at the moment?
Mark Rein: Not again! Oh my god what a mistake! It's just a research project, you know it's aimed at the next next generation, there's still one guy still working on it. The answer is 'yup Tim is still doing his research', he's still the only one on it. We don't see that being staffed up for a couple more years, there's nothing really there. It's not Unreal Engine 4, yet, but one day it will be! We're doing research that one day will be the cornerstone of Unreal Engine 4.
So what's next for Epic in the next year or so?
Mark Rein: Well, shipping these games would be a good start. We are so focussed on our games and our technology that that's what's next. Continuing to execute and get better and better, deliver better support for our licensee customers. We're doing a seminar this year at GDC for our licensees. We try to do one a year depending on where we are in development and that's always good. Then GDC, E3, then the Tokyo Games Show, a whole schedule of shows as we bring the games to the marketplace - we've got lots to do!
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